Most newly diagnosed patients were seizure-free at 12 months of follow-up
By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, April 15, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The new International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) definition of epilepsy results in a higher frequency of epilepsy diagnosis and treatment, according to a study published online March 23 in Frontiers in Neurology.
Lena Habermehl, M.D., from the Epilepsy Center Hessen at Philipps-University Marburg in Germany, and colleagues investigated the clinical impact of the new ILAE epilepsy definition on diagnosis, treatment, and short-term outcome. The analysis included 235 adult patients admitted with a first epileptic seizure from 2018 to 2021.
The researchers found that 62.1 percent of patients were diagnosed with epilepsy, following the new ILAE criteria. Just under half of people diagnosed with epilepsy had potential epileptogenic lesions on imaging (49.3 percent). At six months of follow-up, three-quarters of patients were seizure-free (77.3 percent), including 89 of the 146 patients diagnosed with epilepsy (70.6 percent). At 12 months of follow-up, 129 patients (80.6 percent) were seizure-free. The use of antiseizure medicine significantly decreased the recurrence rate (odds ratio, 0.46).
“Our results suggest that the new definition of epilepsy results in a higher frequency of epilepsy diagnosis and treatment,” the authors write. “Short-term outcomes improved (one-year recurrence rate of 19.4 percent).”
Several authors disclosed ties to the pharmaceutical industry.
Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
