Abstracts

Rationale: The overall reported incidence of status epilepticus is 9.9-41/100 000/year, with large variations reflecting various populations and study methods [Sánchez S & Rincon F, J Clin Med 2016 5(8): 71]. In a large sample from the US Hospital Discharge Survey, the incidence increased from 3.5 to 12.5/100 000 between 1979 and 2010 [Dham BS et al, Neurocrit Care 2014 20:476-483]. The present study aims to investigate trends of hospital admissions for status epilepticus as recorded in a population-based registry. Methods: Hospital admissions with main diagnosis status epilepticus (G41) were identified through the comprehensive Swedish National Patient Registry, provided by the National Board of Health and Welfare (http://www.socialstyrelsen.se/Statistik/statistikdatabas). Descriptive statistics were used to present the incidence of status epilepticus related to region, sex, and age. Results: In 1998-2015, there were 8 751 admissions for status epilepticus, amounting to 63 577 hospital days. There were slightly more admissions in males (4 536) compared to females (4 035). The mean duration of hospitalization each year was 6.79-9.00 days. The number of hospital admissions ranged from 363 to 635 (4.10-6.61/100 000) with a trend towards increasing incidence over time. There were no significant differences between densely populated and rural regions. There was a higher incidence of status epilepticus in persons above 60 years of age (8.83-14.29/100 000) than persons of age 0-19 years (1.72-4.82/100 000) or 20-59 years (2.71-4.16/100 000). During the same period 1998-2015, there were 150 053 admissions for epilepsy (G40) with near constant incidence over time. Conclusions: The incidence of status epilepticus was lower than previously reported. The Swedish National Patient Registry includes all hospitalizations in Swedish hospitals with less than 1% reported without main diagnosis. Still, a limitation in this material is that the statistics database only reports cases with status epilepticus as main diagnosis. Cases of status epilepticus may therefore have been coded with important co-morbidity as main diagnosis or miscoded, for instance as epilepsy only. Furthermore, various definitions of status epilepticus may been used. In summary, these data may provide a lower estimate of the incidence of status epilepticus in a population-based setting, with a very low rate of missing data. Funding: None.