Incidence of epilepsy: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Neurology 2011;
77:1005-12. [PMID:
21893672 PMCID:
PMC3171955 DOI:
10.1212/wnl.0b013e31822cfc90]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 273] [Impact Index Per Article: 21.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/14/2011] [Accepted: 05/12/2011] [Indexed: 11/15/2022] Open
Abstract
OBJECTIVE
To estimate the pooled incidence of epilepsy from published studies and investigate sources of heterogeneity in the estimates.
METHODS
We searched online databases for incidence studies and used meta-analytic methods to analyze the data.
RESULTS
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).
CONCLUSION
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.
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