Neonatal seizures: Aetiology by means of a standardized work-up. Loman et al. Eur J Paediatr Neurol. 2014 Feb 17. PMID: 24630570

This study explored the incidence of different aetiologies of neonatal seizures in a real cohort of patients. All full-term born neonates from January 2002 till September 2009 with neonatal seizures, admitted to the local neonatal ICU were included (n = 221). Aetiology was investigated by means of a standardized aetiologic work-up.

The most frequent aetiologies of neonatal seizures were:

• hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) (53.9%),
• metabolic or electrolyte disorders (10.9%),
• intracranial hemorrhage (9.0%),
• ischemic infarction (7.2%),
• intracranial infections (6.3%),
• congenital malformations of the central nervous system (3.2%),
• inborn errors of metabolism (2.3%),
• epileptic syndromes (0.5%)

Posted by Yannis Trakadis, MD