Brain injury increases epilepsy risk: study
POSTED February 25, 2009 - 13:14 | POSTED BY Chanchal S. Suri
Last edited by Shikha Patial on February 25, 2009 - 13:48
Denmark, February 25: Danish researchers have found that people suffering from traumatic brain injury are at higher risk of developing epilepsy, a chronic neurological disorder.
The researchers said that the risk of developing epilepsy persist for over a decade after the injury. But the treatments could help to prevent the disease.
Dr. Jakob Christensen, of the neurology department at Aarhus University Hospital, and colleagues said, "Traumatic brain injury is a significant risk indicator for epilepsy many years after the injury. Drug treatment after brain injury with the aim of preventing post-traumatic epilepsy has been discouraging, but our data suggest a long time interval for potential, preventive treatment of high-risk patients.”
The medical researchers examined the data of 1.6 million young people born in Denmark between 1977 and 2002. They took the data from a national registry on traumatic brain injury and epilepsy.
They found that the chances of developing the epilepsy were doubled in cases of mild injury and skull fracture patients. The risk was seven times more in the patients suffering from severe brain injury.
The researchers also noted that the risk had increased over more than 10 years after the initial injury whether mild or severe. The risk was high among people older than 15 years of age with mild and severe injury.
They also found that women with brain injury were at higher risk of developing the disease than men. They reported that the brain injury patients with a family history of epilepsy were at higher risk of epilepsy.
Epilepsy is a serious neurological disorder in which patients experience seizures that can be controlled with some drugs but cannot be cured. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), epilepsy affects about 2.5 million people in United States.
The authors interpreted, “The long-lasting high risk of epilepsy after brain injury might provide a window for prevention of post-traumatic epilepsy.”
The study released online in The Lancet and will be published in an upcoming print issue of the journal.
