Abstracts

RATIONALE: Menstrual disorders, reduced fertility and sexual problems have been reported to be more frequent in women with epilepsy than in the general population. However, most investigations concerning menstrual disturbances in epilepsy patients are hampered by a small number of patients and often based on selected materials. We therefore wanted to investigate the frequency of menstrual disturbances in a larger population of female epilepsy patients and possible factors influencing this frequency.
METHODS: A retrospective, questionnaire study of a cohort of female out-patients, aged 18-45 was conducted. Each patient chose a close friend who served as individual controls to optimise matching regarding age and lifestyle. Menstrual disturbances were defined as periods of less then 22 days or more than 35 days, or bleeding duration of more than 8 days, or a variation of more than 4 days between two consecutive menstrual periods.
RESULTS: Answers were received from 265 patients and 142 controls. In the epilepsy group, 56,6 % had partial and 36,6 % generalised epilepsy. In 6,8 % of the patients we were unable to classify the epilepsy type. Mean age was 32.3 yrs in the patient group and 32.0 yrs the control group. Body mass index (BMI) was 24.3 in the patient and 24.1 in the control group. Menarche age was 13.1 in patient and 13.0 in controls. 48 % of the patients had menstrual disturbances compared to 29,7 % in the control group (p[lt]0.004). Menstrual disturbances were seen in 50.7% of patients with generalised compared to 47,8 % in patients with partial epilepsy (not significant).
CONCLUSIONS: The investigation confirms that women with epilepsy have an increased frequency of menstrual disturbances compared to women without epilepsy. There was no difference between patients with generalised versus partial epilepsy. BMI or menarche age did not differ.
[Supported by: The study was supported by the Norwegian branch of IBE]