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Therapeutics
Mortality rates were higher in adults with epilepsy, but the risk for dying directly of epilepsy was small

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebm.4.6.190

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    Shackleton DP, Westendorp RG, Kasteleijn-Nolst Trenité DG, Vanden-broucke JP. Mortality in patients with epilepsy: 40 years of follow up in a Dutch cohort study. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 1999 May;66: 636-40.

    Question

    In adults with newly diagnosed epilepsy, are all-cause mortality and epilepsy-specific mortality increased during short-term and long-term follow-up?

    Design

    Inception cohort followed for up to 41 years (mean 28 y).

    Setting

    Community- and hospital-based epilepsy institute in the Netherlands.

    Patients

    1455 patients (54% men) with newly diagnosed epilepsy who first visited the institute between 1953 and 1967. Mean age at diagnosis was 19 years (range 6 mo to 70 y). Follow-up was 93% (1355 patients, 55% men). A neurologist confirmed epilepsy by using patient history and the results of electroencepha-lography. Exclusion criterion was pre-vious remote, symptomatic, unprovoked seizures.

    Assessment of prognostic factors

    Age, age at diagnosis, sex, date of first hospitalization in the epilepsy institute, and duration of disease.

    Main outcome measures

    Mortality was categorized …

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