Profile of children with seizures in a tertiary care hospital at VCSGGIMS and R Srinagar Pauri, Gharwal, Uttarakhand, India

Background: Seizure is one of the common causes of childhood hospitalization with significant mortality and morbidity. Current study is to find the etiology of seizure and classify seizure into various types and age groups presenting to tertiary center in Department of pediatrics VCSGGIMS and R Srinagar Pauri, Gharwal, Uttrakhand, India.Methods: This was a hospital based prospective study carried out from 1st Jan. 2014 to 31st Dec 2014. Variables collected were demographics, clinical presentations, laboratory tests, brain imaging studies, electroencephalography, diagnosis and hospital course.Results: A total of 276 patients were admitted for seizures with 172 (62.3%) males and 104 (37.7%) females. Among these patients, 148 (53.5%) presented with fever and 157 (56.8%) of children were less than 5 years of age. Generalized tonic-clonic seizure was the most common seizure type (69.2%) followed by partial (19.2%), absence (2.8%), myoclonus (1.6%) and others (6.9%). Seizure disorder (33.7%), febrile seizures (30%), CNS infections (meningitis 6.1%, encephalitis 6.5% and Tubercular meningitis 1.8%) and neurocysticercosis were other common etiologies. Abnormal brain images were noted in 55 (45.45%) out of 121 patients and most common abnormality was neurocysticercosis 33(12%).Conclusions: Acute episode of seizure is one of the causes for hospitalization. It can be concluded from present study that most of seizures caused by febrile seizures and CNS infections (meningitis and encephalitis, neurocysticercosis) can be managed better with prompt interventions. Children presenting with unprovoked seizure need prolonged follow up with neurophysiologic studies and neuroimaging (CT or MRI) for better understanding of childhood seizure.