Epileptic seizures following subcortical infarcts

Stroke is one of the most frequent causes of seizures in adulthood. Subcort ical infarcts have been associated with post-stroke epileptic seizures, alt hough less frequently than cortical ischaemia. We studied 113 patients from a hospital stroke registry. The patients had subcortical non-lacunar infar cts (64 striatocapsular infarcts, 13 thalamic, 8 choroidal artery territory , 28 internal border zone and white matter medullary infarcts) and at least 1 year of follow-up. Only 4 patients (3.5%) with striatocapsular infarcts suffered an epileptic seizure. Two seizures occurred within the first 24 h, 1 within the first month and 1 within the first year of stroke onset. Embo ligenic cardiac conditions were significantly more common in patients with seizures (difference 37%; 95% confidence intervals 2-72%). Subsequently to subcortical infarct, epileptic seizures are infrequent, tend to occur early after stroke and have a very low 1-year recurrence risk. Copyright (C) 200 1 & Karger AG, Basel.