For a period of slightly over 4 years, 80 children who had been seizure-free for at least 18 months while on anti-convulsant medication were prospectively collected. These 80 children were randomly assigned to either the 18-months seizure-free group (n 5 41) or to the group where anti-convulsant medications were continued for another 6 months before they were gradually tapered off and stopped, i.e. the 24-months seizure-free group (n 5 39). Twelve (29%) of the 41 children who had been seizure-free for 18 months and 14 (36%) of the 39 children who had been seizure-free for 24 months had seizure recurrence during the follow-up period. Log-rank test of the recurrence experience of the two groups of patients showed no statistically signi® cant difference between the groups (p . 0.50). Similarly, when both groups were combined and other risk variables likely to in¯uence the rate of seizure recurrence were tested, only EEG abnormality at discontinuation of anti-convulsant medication had a signi® cant association with the risk of seizure recurrence (p , 0.001).
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