Abstracts

Rationale: Epileptic seizure is the most common type of neurologic disorders visiting the emergency room in preschool aged children. But the causes and the prognosis of epileptic seizures are variable. We would like to evaluate the clinical characteristics of preschool aged children visited the emergency room by epileptic seizures. Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 401 preschool aged children, who visited the emergency room of Yonsei Wonju Severance Christian Hospital from january, 2011 to December, 2012 by the epileptic seizures. We evaluated the clinical characteristics such as age, sex, and causes at the 1st visiting emergency room during study period, and also whether admission and revisited the emergency room by epileptic seizures or not. Results: The mean (±Std) age is 24 (±12.0) months. The ratio of male and female is 1.3 : 1. The causes are febrile convulsion (80.0%), idiopathic (7.7%), epilepsy (4.5%), associated with acute gastroenteritis (3.7%), head trauma (2.5%), meningitis (1.0%), hypoglycemia (0.5%), and Carbon monoxide intoxication (0.1%). The rate of patients who were admitted is 66.3%; febrile convulsion, 65.6%, idiopathic, 61.3%, epilepsy, 77.8%, associated with acute gastroenteritis, 93.3%, head trauma, 30.0%, meningitis and hypoglycemia, 100%. The mean (±Std) admission days are 4 (±1.7); febrile convulsion, 3.9, idiopathic, 3.3, epilepsy, 4.7, associated with acute gastroenteritis, 4.9, head trauma, 4.5, meningitis, 7, hypoglycemia, 3 days. The rate revisited the emergency room by epileptic seizures is 21.2%; febrile convulsion, 21.8%, idiopathic, 16.1%, epielpsy, 33.3%, associated with acute gastroenteritis, 6.7%, head trauma, 30%, meningitis, hypoglycemia and carbonmonoxide intoxication, 0%. Conclusions: The most common cause of epileptic seizure visiting the emergency room in preschool aged children is febrile convulsion. More than half of the patients admitted and the cause of the highest rate revisited the emergency room by epileptic seizure is epilepsy.