Abstracts

Rationale: Convulsions associated with mild gastroenteritis have been increasingly reported. We investigated the clinical characteristics and the outcome of febrile and afebrile convulsions with mild gastroenteritis Methods: We reviewed the medical records of 72 children presenting with seizures during a mild gastroenteritis episode. They were classified into an afebrile group (n=35) and a febrile group (n=37). We compared the age of onset, sex, seizure semiology, frequency, duration, cluster duration and long-term prognosis between the two groups. Results: There were 39 boys and 33 girls in the patient population. The age of onset ranged from 6 to 79 months (mean 22.8 ± 11.5 months). Seizures developed at 2.0 ± 1.2 day after onset of gastroenteritis, 2.4 ± 1.1 times during seizure cluster, with seizure duration ranged from 30 seconds or less to more than 30 minutes (mean 10.0 ± 25.3 minutes). The febrile and afebrile seizure groups did not differ in mean age, sex, seizure semiology, and frequency of seizure. However, afebrile patients experienced more seizures than in the febrile group during seizure cluster. Although transient EEG epileptiform abnormalities were detected in both group (8.6% vs 10.8%), no patient showed unprovoked seizure during 31.5 ± 17.1 months follow-up periods. Conclusions: Febrile and afebrile convulsions with mild gastroenteritis did not differ in clinical manifestation. Their long-term prognosis were uniformly benign irrespective they have fever or not.