Abstracts

Rationale: Epilepsy is a broad spectrum of neurological disorders characterized by a permanent predisposition to generate spontaneous recurrent epileptic seizures accompanied by neurobiological, cognitive and social consequences. Its prevalence is approximately 1% of the world's population, affecting about 50 million people worldwide. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) suggests an incidence of epilepsy around 0.5 to 6.2 / 1000 inhabitants. Although of great importance, there is a lack of epidemiological studies on epilepsy particularly in Latin America. In the present abstract, we performed a systematic review of the epidemiological studies carried out in Americas during the last 10 years.  Methods: An integrative review of the literature of the last 10 years (2007-2017) was carried out in the electronic libraries SCIELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online), PubMed (Public Medline), Lilacs (Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences), using the descriptors: epilepsy AND epidemiology AND incidence. The inclusion criteria were as follows: the articles must have been published within the period 2007-2017; they must be from at least one country of the Americas; they must be an epidemiological study and the main research topic must be epilepsy. Results: The search returned 55 articles, of which 28 came from Pubmed database. The United States of America (USA) were responsible for 20% of the articles published (11/55). Only 16 out of the 35 countries that compose Americas (Argentina, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Grenada, Mexico, Peru, Saint Lucia, Saint Vicent, Trindad, United States of America and Venezuela) presented at least one epidemiological study. Studies were restricted to a specific region, institution or age group, thus restricting a cohort of the population, and the total epidemiology of the countries could not be accurately estimated.  Conclusions: There is a lack of epidemiological studies on epilepsy in Americas and the studies available are limited to a specific region or age group. USA is responsible for most of the studies available. Encouraging discussions about epilepsy in the Americas is paramount, since the total amount of the population affected is not known. Better education and disease notification, multicentric collaboration, dissemination of information about epilepsy, and the creation of specialized centers for a multidisciplinary approach of the epileptic population might help to ameliorate the problem. Funding: No fund supported this abstract