GENDER DIFFERENCE IN IDIOPATHIC GENERALIZED EPILEPSY
Abstract number :
2.324
Submission category :
Year :
2003
Submission ID :
2265
Source :
www.aesnet.org
Presentation date :
12/6/2003 12:00:00 AM
Published date :
Dec 1, 2003, 06:00 AM
Authors :
Jakob Christensen, Marianne Juel Kjeldsen, Henning Andersen, Mogens Laue Friis, Per Sidenius Department of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Aarhus, Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; Department of Ne
Gender differencies in epilepsy syndromes have been reported, when classifying epilepsies in accordance with the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) classification. In general the rates of epilepsy have been reported to be equal or slightly higher in men for most seizure types, however, absence epilepsy have been reported more frequently in girls than in boys. We looked at gender differencies in two independent, population cohorts of adult patients with epilepsy diagnosed in accordance with ILAE critearia to further extend these findings.
Adult epilepsy patients ([gt] 15 years) at the outpatient clinic at the Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hospital were classified according to ILAE criteria into 1) Localization-related epilepsies and syndromes, 2) Generalized epilepsies and syndromes 3) Epilepsies and syndromes, undetermined whether focal or generalized, and 4) Special syndromes. Information from each individual patient was entered into a database provided by the Danish Epilepsy Society (EPIBASE).
To further assess the influence of gender, we evaluated the information on epileptic syndromes from a twin study involving validated diagnoses from 102 persons classified with idiopathic generalized epilepsy.
Information on the 2,232 patients registered in EPIBASE at the outpatient clinic at the Department of Neurology, Aarhus University Hosptal is given in table 1.[table1]There seems to be more women than men with genralized epilepsies and we further analyzed information from the 432 patients, who were classified with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (table 2).[table2]In the twin study we found 37 (36 %) men and 65 (64 %) women with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (p = 0.007).
Idiopathic generalized epilepsy was more frequently diagnosed in women than in men. This was observed in two independent epilepsy populations. The gender diffrence was primarily related to juvenile absence epilepsy and juvenile myoclonic epilepsy.
[Supported by: NIH NINDS grant (NS-31564) and the Danish Epilepsy Society.]