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Epidemiology

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

The incidence of status epilepticus is 20/100,000 for Caucasians in industrialised countries (1).

  • the incidence of SE has a bimodal distribution
    • the first peak seen during the first year of life while the second peak occuring after the age of 60 years
    • among adults, the highest risk of developing SE is seen in patients older than 60, with an incidence of 86 per 100,000 persons per year
    • among children, the highest incidence and prevalence of SE was observed in babies less than 12 months (1)

Status epilepticus occurs most frequently in patients without a prior diagnosis of epilepsy;

  • 5% of adults with epilepsy will experience at least one episode of status epilepticus
  • the common causes of status epilepticus in a patient with a prior diagnosis of epilepsy are:
    • drug withdrawal
    • intercurrent illness
    • metabolic disturbance
    • progression of the underlying disease

Mortality rates related to SE is around 7% in children while in adults it is around 28%. An increase in mortality is seen with age, duration of SE and the underlying cause (2).

Reference:

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