Posttraumatic epilepsy

Recurrent seizures more than 7 days following injury.

● 2 categories: early (≤ 7 days) and late (>7 days) after head trauma

anticonvulsants (AEDs) may be used to prevent early posttraumatic seizures (PTS) in patients at high risk for seizures

● prophylactic AEDs do NOT reduce the frequency of late PTS

● discontinue AEDs after 1 week except for cases meeting specific criteria

Posttraumatic seizures (PTS) are often divided (arbitrarily) into early (occurring within 1 week of injury) and late (thereafter) 1). There may be justification for a third category: “immediate”, i.e. within minutes to an hour or so.

see Late-onset posttraumatic seizures.

Early Posttraumatic seizures.

Book Review: Posttraumatic Epilepsy: Basic and Clinical Aspects 2).


1)
Young B, Rapp RP, Norton JA, et al. Failure of Prophylactically Administered Phenytoin to Prevent Late Posttraumatic Seizures. J Neurosurg. 1983; 58:236–241
2)
Pearce JJ 3rd, Byrne RW. Book Review: Posttraumatic Epilepsy: Basic and Clinical Aspects. Neurosurgery. 2023 May 1;92(5):e111-e112. doi: 10.1227/neu.0000000000002438. Epub 2023 Mar 16. PMID: 37756663.
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