THE PREVALENCE AND CLASSIFICATION OF EPILEPTIC SEIZURES IN NIGERIANS WITH SICKLE-CELL-ANEMIA

A clinical and electroencephalographic study of the prevalence and pat tern of epileptic seizures in 96 patients with sickle-cell anaemia (M: F 1:1, median age 12 years, range 2-45 years) attending our hospital i s reported. Ten patients (M:F 1:1.5, median age 21 years, range 16-25 years) had epileptic seizures, giving a relatively high prevalence of 10.4%. Of these, one patient had primary generalized tonic-clonic seiz ures and four had secondarily generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Five patients had partial seizures without generalization. Only two patient s were on any antiepileptic drug therapy. Our findings suggest that th ough epilepsy is common in SCA and the seizures seen are liable to poo r control and increased risk for mortality, the patient is unlikely to present voluntarily for therapy. Physicians atteneding to young adult s with SCA should specifically attempt to elicit a history of epilepti c seizures in their patients.