Incidence of epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

To estimate the pooled incidence of epilepsy from published studies and investigate sources of heterogeneity in the estimates. We searched online databases for incidence studies and used meta-analytic methods to analyze the data. Thirty-three articles met the entry criteria. The median incidence of...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNeurology Vol. 77; no. 10; p. 1005
Main Authors Ngugi, Anthony K, Kariuki, S M, Bottomley, C, Kleinschmidt, I, Sander, J W, Newton, C R
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 06.09.2011
Subjects
Databases, Factual
Epilepsy - diagnosis
Epilepsy - epidemiology
Epilepsy - physiopathology
Humans
Incidence
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Summary:To estimate the pooled incidence of epilepsy from published studies and investigate sources of heterogeneity in the estimates. We searched online databases for incidence studies and used meta-analytic methods to analyze the data. Thirty-three articles met the entry criteria. The median incidence of epilepsy was 50.4/100,000/year (interquartile range [IQR] 33.6-75.6), while it was 45.0 (IQR 30.3-66.7) for high-income countries and 81.7 (IQR 28.0-239.5) for low- and middle-income countries. Population-based studies had higher incidence estimates than hospital-based studies (p = 0.02) while retrospective study design was associated with lower estimates than prospective studies (p = 0.04). We provide data that could potentially be used to assess the burden and analyze the trends in incidence of epilepsy. Our results support the need for large population-based incidence studies of epilepsy.
ISSN:1526-632X
DOI:10.1212/WNL.0b013e31822cfc90