Abstracts

Rationale: To determine the rate of patients with Parkinson`s Disease (PD) who developed status epilepticus, as it has been shown in animal models that a dopaminergic deficit may aggravate epileptic seizures. Methods: The medical reports for all in- and outpatients of the Department of Neurology, University of Munich of the years 2000-2006 were searched for the terms "Parkinsons`s Disease", "dopaminergic deficit", "epilepsy", "epileptic seizure", and "status epilepticus". All resulting reports were reviewed and the diagnoses of PD and epilepsy were reviewed according to clinical criteria from the records. We compared the rate of epilepsy and status epilepticus in patients with and patients without PD. Results: We identified 1398 patients with PD, 31 with concomitant epilepsy (2.2%) and 2537 patients with epilepsy that did not have concomitant PD. Of the 31 PD patients 19 had had a status epilepticus (61.3%), as compared to 298 patients with status epilepticus of the epilepsy group without concomitant PD (11.7%; p<0.001). Of the 19 patients with PD and status epilepticus, 9 of them had non-convulsive status epilepticus, 8 convulsive status epilepticus and in 2 patients convulsive status epilepticus evolved into non-convulsive status epilepticus. Conclusions: Although patients with PD are not likely to develop epileptic seizures, their risk of status epilepticus is higher than in epilepsy patients. Thus, dopaminaergic defict seems to contribute to development of status epilepticus.