Febrile seizures (FS) are one of the most common neurological disorders in pediatrics, commonly seen in children from three months to five years of age. Most children with FS have a good prognosis, but some febrile convulsions progress to refractory epilepsy (RE). Epilepsy is a common chronic neurological disorder , and refractory epilepsy accounts for approximately one-third of epilepsies. The etiology of refractory epilepsy is currently complex and diverse, and its mechanisms are not fully understood. There are many pathophysiological changes that occur after febrile convulsions, such as inflammatory responses, changes in the blood-brain barrier, and oxidative stress, which can subsequently potentially lead to refractory epilepsy, and inflammation is always in tandem with all physiological changes as the main response. This article focuses on the pathogenesis of refractory epilepsy resulting from post-febrile convulsions.
ObjectiveTo determine the outcome of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) withdrawal in patients who had been seizure-free for more than two years. MethodsPatients with epilepsy who had been seizure-free for at least two years and decided to stop AEDs therapy gradually were checked on every two months for seizure relapse. The inclusion criteria were:①diagnosis of epilepsy, defined as at least two unprovoked seizures at least 24 hours apart; ②patients remained seizure-free for at least 24 consecutive months during AEDs therapy; ③patients expressed a desire to discontinue AEDs therapy gradually and agreed to return for regular follow-ups; and④electroencephalogram (EEG) showed no epileptic discharge. The time to a seizure relapse and predictive factors were analyzed by survival methods, including sex; age at seizure onset; number of episodes; seizure-free period before AEDs withdrawal; duration of follow-up after AEDs withdrawal; AEDs tapering off period (taper period); results from brain MRI; EEG before seizure-free; EEG before drug withdrawal; seizure type (classified as generalized, partial, or multiple types based on history); the number of AEDs administered for long-term seizure control. A log-rank test was used for univariate analysis, and a Cox proportional hazard model was used for multivariate analysis. ResultsSixty-eight patients (39 male, 29 female) were admithed. The relapsed rate was 23.5%. Univariate analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis indicated that multiple AEDs, hippocampal sclerosis and withdrawal time were significantly correlated with seizure recurrence and those were significant independent predictive factors, with hazard ratio were 0.861, 2.223 and 2.137 respectively. ConclusionsThe relapsed rate in our study was similar to other studies. Distinguishing variables, such as multiple AEDs, hippocampal sclerosis and withdrawal time, need to be considered when decide to withdraw. Therefore, our recommendation is that after two years of being seizure-free, patients could consider withdrawal unless they are hippocampal sclerosis patients.
ObjectiveTo investigate the status and prognosis effect of surgical operation for Temporal lobe epilepsy.MethodsRetrospective analyses were performed on 24 patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy who were treated by surgery in Zibo Changguo Hospital and had complete clinical and follow-up data, during the period from April 2011 to June 2014. Among them, 14 were male and 10 were female, 16 to 44 years old, the average age was (24.40±6.26) years old, and the average course of disease was (12.50±8.42) years old. The clinical characteristics and prognosis of the patients were analyzed.ResultsAll 24 patients had hippocampal sclerosis and underwent "anterior temporal lobe and medial temporal structural resection". Patients were followed up for 5~7 years, the postoperative epileptic seizure of the patient reached grade Engel Ⅰ in 20 cases (83.3%), grade Engel Ⅱ in 2 cases (8.3%) and grade Engel Ⅳ in 2 cases (8.3%).ConclusionHippocampal sclerosis and cortical dysplasia were common in 24 patients, and the operation controlling intractable epilepsy was better. In order to improve the prognosis of patients, surgical treatment should be carried out as soon as possible.
ObjectiveThe abnormal autophagy fluxis involved in the pathophysiological process of drug-resistance temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).Hippocampal sclerosis (HS) is the main pathological type of drug-resistance TLE.Different subtypes of HS have various prognosis, etiology and pathophysiology.However, whether theabnormal block ofautophagy flux involved in this process has not been reported.This study proposed a preliminary comparison of autophagy fluxin typical and atypical HS to investigate the potential pathogenesis and drug-resistance mechanism of atypical HS. MethodsSurgical excision of hippocampal and temporal lobe epilepsy foci were performed in 17 patients with drug-resistance TLE.Patients were grouped according to the HS classification issued by International League Against Epilepsy in 2013.The distribution and expression of LC3B, beclin-1 and P62 were detected by immunohistochemistry and Western blot in each group. ResultsLC3B, beclin-1 and P62 are mainly expressed in neuronal cytoplasm, which is consistent with previous reports.Taking β-actin as internal reference, we found that LC3B and Beclin-1, the downstream products of autophagy flux, have increased significantly (P < 0.01) in the atypical HS group compared to typical HS group.However, the autophagy flux substrate P62 has no difference between the groups.This result suggested that compared with the typical HS group, atypical HS group had autophagy substrate accumulation and autophagy flux abnormal block.Besides, we found that glyceraldehycle-3-phosphate dehydrogenase(GAPDH) was significantly different between the two groups (P=0.003). ConclusionThere is abnormal phenomenon of autophagy flux in atypical HS, and GAPDH elevation may be involved in its mechanism, which might provide new targets and ideas for future treatment of atypical HS.
Objective To identify the most consistent and replicable characteristics of altered spontaneous brain activity in mesial temporal lobe epilepsy patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis (MTLE-HS). Methods A systematic literature search was performed in PubMed, Embase, The Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, Wanfang, and CQVIP databases, to identify eligible whole-brain resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging studies that had measured differences in amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations or fractional amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations between patients with MTLE-HS and healthy controls from January 2000 to January 2019. After literature screening and data extraction, Anisotropic Effect-Size Signed Differential Mapping software was used for voxel based pooled meta-analysis. Results Nine datasets from six studies were finally included, which contained 207 MTLE-HS patients and 239 healthy controls. The results demonstrated that, compared with the healthy controls, the MTLE-HS patients showed increased spontaneous brain activity in right hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus, right superior temporal gyrus, left cingulate gyrus, right fusiform gyrus, and right inferior temporal gyrus; while decreased spontaneous brain activity in left superior frontal gyrus, right angular gyrus, right middle frontal gyrus, left inferior parietal lobule, left precuneus, and right cerebellum (P<0.005, cluster extent≥10). Conclusion The current meta-analysis demonstrates that patients with MTLE-HS show increased spontaneous brain activity in lateral and mesial temporal regions and decreased spontaneous brain activity in default mode network, which preliminarily clarifies the characteristics of altered spontaneous brain activity in patients with MTLE-HS.