Correspondence
Dr.(Mrs) Chanda Kulkarni. MD; Ph.D; FSASMS; Cert.Clin. Epilepsy Professor
and Head, Clinical Pharmacology,
St.John’s Medical College, Bangalore
60 034, Ph : 080 - 22065045,E-mail :
dr_chanda_k@hathway.com,drchandakulkarni@gmail.com

The present study was undertaken with an objective to study the extent and pattern of the Pharmacological factors which are responsible for acute seizures reporting at the emergency medicine department of a tertiary care hospital. This prospective and retrospective observational, cross sectional study involved data collection on a specially designed proforma with respect to - seizure diagnosis, duration, co-existing medical conditions, precipitating factors if any, along with details of drug treatment after admission to the emergency ward. Data analysis of 250 patients with a diagnosis of seizures showed a maximum number of males with the highest number of febrile seizures. The evaluation of aetiological factors revealed a maximum number of patients with non-compliance, followed by CNS infections, metabolic and iatrogenic causes and others of unknown aetiology. Interestingly, majority of the patients were from urban background and were educated. The possible pharmacological factors that were identified to have contributed to acute seizures included – lack of appropriate instructions to patients regarding medication intake, in-appropriate dosage of anti-epileptic medication, anti-epileptic drug-drug interactions, in addition to the use of complementary systems of medications, as well as non-compliance. However, though such multiple factors may be considered to have attributed to acute seizures, it may be concluded that a majority of these could be easily controlled and/or can be prevented with simple precautionary measures that have been highlighted under ‘conclusions’ at the end of this article.

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