Epidemiological, clinical and laboratory features of children with febrile seizures

Objectives: With respect to the issue that febrile seizures (FS)is the most common seizure type in children, the purpose of this study was to determine the epidemiological, clinicaland laboratory features of children admitted to Misurata Teaching Hospital with febrile seizures in2015 – 2016 and its comparison with similar studies in other parts of the world.
Patients and Methods: Descriptive (Longitudinal hospital based) study where children was admitted to pediatric department in Misurata Teaching hospital 6 months – 6 years of age presented with fever and seizure, from 1st June 2015 to 30th of May 2016 are included in the study, patient’s data retrospectively collected based on information registered in hospital medical files including history, demographics, clinical examination and laboratory findings.
Result: During the study period, 292 children with FS were studied, The proportion among all admitted patients was 4%, The mean age of patients with FS was 21.69 ± 13.71 months, the highest frequency was seen in 6 to 18 months age group, which included 163 children (55.4%), Male to female ratio was 1.7:1, Two hundred ninety one (97.9%) children were presented with generalized seizures and 6 (2.1%) had focal seizures. Two hundred eight (71.2%) children had Simple Febrile Seizure, Seventy one children (24.3%) had Complex Febrile Seizure and Febrile Status Epilepticus in 13 (4.5%). The majority of patients 215 (73.6%) had an episode of FS early in the course of illness, The mean temperature of our patients was 38.9 ± 0.70ºC. Two hundred eighty two of children (96.6%) were born at term, only 10 (3.4 %) had less than 37 weeks of gestational age at birth, majority with average birth weight, with only 21 (7.2%) was below 2500 gm. at birth. Ninety (30.8%) of the patients had family history of FS and family history of epilepsy was positive in 19 (6.5%), The mean duration of stay in hospital during the illness was 29.67 ± 15.06 hours. Upper respiratory tract infections was the most common cause of fever, 209 of patients (71.6%), (p-value <0.001), higher frequency (36%) of them were admitted in the winter months of year, especially in January (15.4%) (P-value < 0.001).
Conclusions: Based on our study, the highest frequency of FS was seen in 18 month-old children or younger, except for the lower incidence of positive history of prematurity, low percentage of focal seizure type, results of the present study are relatively similar to other studies. Leukocytosis, low serum sodium and microcytic hypochromic anemia may be another risk factors in occurrence of FS need to be studied in comparison with healthy control group.