Classification of epileptic seizures according to the international league against epilepsy (ILAE) classifications of epileptic seizures (1981) and epilepsies and epileptic syndromes (1989) in chungnam national university hospital

ABSTRACT

Classification of epileptic seizures and syndromes is essential in the management of epileptic patients. Both of the classifications proposed by ILAE are still popularly applied in clinical situations. We tried to verify the differences and usefulness of each classification. During the two year period, 385 consecutive patients (248 male, 137 female) of five years of age or more were classified according to the ILAE classimification of epileptic seizures (1981). These patients were independently classified by two neurologists with the ILAE classification (1989) with same clinical informations. We tentatively add three different sub-categories (focal/multifocal structural lesions with generalized epilepsy, isolated and situation-related epilepsy, and unclassified epilepsy) on the ILAE classification (1989) because of some unclassifiable epileptics. In epilepsies and epileptic syndromes, 61.8% were localization related, 21.8% were generalized, 2.9% were undetermined, 10.9% were special syndrome, 2.6% were unclassifed. After the classification of some patients into the three sub-categories, observed amount of agreement was rised as 95.9%. In the classification of epilepsy and epileptic syndromes proposed by ILAE (1989), debatable definition of categories and resulting unclassifiable epileptic seizure limit the clinical application in some patients.