SENSITIVITY OF A SEIZURE ACTIVITY DETECTION COMPUTER IN CHILDHOOD VIDEO ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC MONITORING/

Purpose: Few data describe the sensitivity of a ''Seizure Activity Det ection Computer'' (SzAC) in childhood video/EEG (VEEG) monitoring, esp ecially for very young children. We examined the accuracy of SzAC in c hildhood VEEG monitoring in different pediatric age groups. Methods: W e visually analyzed VEEG monitoring samples for randomly designated su bsets of 56 patients with childhood epilepsy, reviewing 335 visually d etected electrographic seizures to analyze the sensitivity of SzAC for each age group as well as the electrographic characteristics affectin g the sensitivity of automated computer-based seizure detection. Resul ts: SzAC was positive in 227 of 335 (67.8%) visually identified electr ographic seizures in the entire study group. The SzAC sensitivity for infants (age 2 months to 2 years) was 59.7% (43 of 72 seizures); for y oung children (age 3-10 years), sensitivity 56.5% (91 of 161 seizures) . In adolescents (age 11-18 years), SzAC was positive in 93 of 102 (91 .2%) seizures-i.e., in a significantly greater number of seizures than in younger age groups. SzAC was significantly less sensitive in detec ting electrographic seizures characterized as being of short duration or of low voltage. Conclusions: The overall sensitivity of SzAC in det ecting childhood electrographic seizures was 67.8%. The sensitivity wa s significantly less in younger age groups as compared with that in ch ildren aged >11 years. Electrographic seizures of relatively short dur ation or low voltage were often missed by SzAC.