Prevalence of Early Seizures in Acute Stroke Patients

A stroke is defined as a sudden neurological deficit of cerebrovascular cause that persists beyond 24 hours. Stroke is associated with a whole spectrum of complications, especially post-stroke seizures. These seizures may adversely affect the outcome of stroke in terms of mortality and morbidity. This study was designed to find out the frequency of early post-stroke seizures. Objective: To determine the frequency of early-onset seizures after stroke among patients presenting to tertiary care hospitals. Methods: Two hundred and forty patients, presenting on the Medical floor of Jinnah Hospital Lahore with acute stroke and fulfilling the selection criteria, were approached after informed consent. The patients were followed for 14 days for the development of early seizures after the stroke. Results: Among 240 stroke patients, there were 123 (51.3%) male patients and 117 (48.8%) female patients. The minimum age observed was 30 years and the maximum was noted as 77 years. In 45% of patients, hemorrhagic stroke was detected and 55% of patients had ischemic stroke. From 108 cases of hemorrhagic stroke, there were 10.4% cases in which an episode of seizure occurred within 14 days of stroke. On the other hand, in 132 patients with ischemic stroke, 15.9% of patients developed seizure episodes. Conclusions: It was concluded that ischemic stroke was more common in frequency than hemorrhagic stroke in our population and the occurrence of episode early seizure within 14 days of stroke was more prevalent in ischemic stroke patients.