Abstracts

Rationale: There are very few publications that examined the value of ambulatory EEG studies in patients with syncope.  There are also some articles that stated that the EEG studies are widely ineffective in patients with syncope.  The goal of the study is to assess the diagnostic value of ambulatory EEG studies in patients with syncope.  Methods: We identified all patients with syncope who underwent routine and 72 hour ambulatory video EEG monitoring as an outpatient from 2014 to 2017. Our patient data includes demographics, clinical diagnosis, EEG reports and the chart review.  We included patients who were diagnosed with syncope.  Patients who had syncope and epilepsy were eliminated from the study. Results: A total of 153 ambulatory 72 hour EEG studies were reviewed by an Epileptologist.  We analyzed the data in 22 patients who met the inclusion criteria with the diagnosis of syncope.  Out of the 22 patients with syncope, 12 patients (54%) had either abnormal ambulatory EEG study or spells were recorded.Among those 12 patients , two patients (9%) had left temporal sharp wave discharges, two patients (9%) had generalized epileptiform discharges, one patient (5%) had bi-temporal sharp wave discharges and seven patients (32%) had spells recorded. Conclusions: Our study concluded that ambulatory EEG monitoring may prove useful in evaluation of patients with syncope.  Our study also indicated that 23% of patients  who were diagnosed with syncope had epilepsy after undergoing ambulatory EEG monitoring.  Funding: None