Determination the Proportion of Refractory Epilepsy andSome Associated Factors in Epileptic Patients in the North East of Iran

Background: Epilepsy is the second common neurologic disorder. Althoughmany antiepileptic drugs have been formulated to control the seizures, but notall seizures have been controlled by them. Uncontrolled epilepsy can actuallyreduce the patients’ quality of life.Objectives: Identifying the proportion of adult intractable epilepsy amongepileptic patients in an area in the North East of IranMaterials and Methods: All epileptic patients who admitted to neurologyclinic of a teaching hospital associated with Islamic Azad University ofMashhad in 2014 that were eligible for inclusion criteria enrolled this crosssectionalstudy. After fulfilling the informed consent, interview, examinationand EEG were done. The data was expressed and analyzed by usingMean±Standard deviation and the Likelihood Ratio Chi-Square test in SPSSsoftware version 22. Significance level was considered as less than 0.05%.Results: From 171 patients, 59 patients with epilepsy (34.5%) met the criteriafor intractable epilepsy (37.5% male, 31.3% female) with mean age of 28.2±8.5years. The mean duration of disease was 14.5±8.4 and 11±8.8 years in patientswith refractory epilepsy and controlled epilepsy respectively (t-test=2.5 andp=0.013). The seizure frequency was significantly higher in pharmacoresistantpatients than pharmacoresponsive ones (7.15±8.4 vs. 0.29±7 per monthp=0.0001). Also taking Carbamazepin and Clobazam and Primidone wereassociated with intractable epilepsy (p<0.05).Conclusions: Our results accounted that about one-third of patients withepilepsy are categorized in refractory epilepsy with higher duration of disease

Determination the Proportion of Refractory Epilepsy andSome Associated Factors in Epileptic Patients in the North East of Iran Keywords:

Epilepsy , Prevalence