Abstracts

The goal of our study was to identify the incidence and risk fartors of psttraumatic seizure (PTS) by clinical, neurophysiological, and neuroradiological variables in children. The medical records of 625 children with head trauma under 15 year-old who were admitted to the Wonju Christian Hospital, from Jauary, 1993 to January, 2002 were retrospectively reviewed. Among them, 472 patients were included in this study. The PTS were divided into early (within a week) and late (after a week) by the time of seizure onset after head truama. The severity of the injuries were classified into mild, moderate, and severe by Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), brain CT findings, and hospitalization day. The variables such as age, sex, duration of unconsciousness, GCS, brain CT finding, initial neurologic finding, and anticonvulsant therapy were analyzed to identify the risk factors of PTS. The incidence of PTS was 12.3%; early 8.7%, late; 3.6%. Among the early PTS 77.8% had a seizure/seizures within 24 hours after head trauma. The frequency of seizures after head trauma was less than 2 in 58.6%, between 3 and 10 in 29.3%, and more than 11 episodes in 12.1%. There was no correlation between the frequency and the latency of PTS. The most of the seizure type were generalized tonic-clonic; early 82.9%, late 76.5%. The incidence of PTS by severity of head trauma was 5.8% in mild, 13.0% in moderate, and 29.3% in severe. There was a significant difference in the incidence of PTS by severity of head injuries. The risk factors of PTS were abnormal neurologic findings, duration of unconsciousness, low GCS, diffuse contusion, and abnormal brain CT findings. In early PTS those were unilateral hemorrhage, abnormal neurologic findings, GCS under 12 score, and diffuse contusion and in late PTS were same as early PTS but included age factor under 2 year-old. The incidence and risk factors of PTS were correlated with severity of head trauma.