Febrile Convulsions and Later Development of Epilepsy

A retrospective analysis of patients with febrile seizures followed by epilepsy

“…According to our findings, the onset of FSs was mainly around 1 year of age, of which, 51.3% occurred within the first year (Table 3). Similar results with 40-70% occurrence within the first year, 67-77% within 3 years, 85% within 4 years and 8% after 10 years of age were reported by others 5,7,19,20 .…”

“…Complexity of FSs, which is considered as another risk factor relating to epilepsy, was present in 41.2% of our patients. Although this is apparently larger than expected in a general population of FSs, some studies have demonstrated that complex FSs in patients with subsequent epilepsy can be more common than simple FSs 5 .…”

Febrile seizures in patients with complex partial seizures

“…Epilepsy with complex partial seizures is preceded by febrile seizures in only 9% of adult out-patients atten-ding a seizure clinic in a department of neurology. Febrile seizures are therefore only weakly associated with the development of complex partial seizures in agreement with recent epidemiological data (3,4,12,13). This finding does not exclude, however, that febrile seizures may be strongly associated with a small subgroup of patients with complex partial seizures.…”

Risk factors for childhood epilepsy: a case-control study from Irbid, Jordan

“…The history of febrile convulsions raises the risk of developing epilepsy by fivefolds which conforms with the results of previous reports [21][22][23] . The strong association with febrile seizures in this study, as well as in other studies, does not necessarily reflect a causal relationship but may mean that febrile convulsions represent an early expression of a low seizure threshold that subsequently develops into epilepsy 24 .…”