Epilepsy-related and other causes of mortality in people with epilepsy: A systematic review of systematic reviews

•Mortality in epilepsy has remained high and virtually unchanged since the 1950s.•Epilepsy-related mortality predominates causes of death in people with epilepsy.•Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a common epilepsy-related cause of death.•Other common epilepsy-related causes include alc...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Epilepsy research 2019-11, Vol.157, p.106192-106192, Article 106192
Main Authors: Mbizvo, Gashirai K., Bennett, Kyle, Simpson, Colin R., Duncan, Susan E., Chin, Richard F.M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Case-control study
Cohort study
Death
Overview of reviews
Seizures
SUDEP
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:•Mortality in epilepsy has remained high and virtually unchanged since the 1950s.•Epilepsy-related mortality predominates causes of death in people with epilepsy.•Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is a common epilepsy-related cause of death.•Other common epilepsy-related causes include alcohol, drowning, pneumonia, and suicide.•The epilepsy-related cause of death most extensively investigated for risk factors is SUDEP. This systematic review of epilepsy mortality systematic reviews evaluates comparative risks, causes, and risk factors for all-cause mortality in people with epilepsy (PWE) to specifically establish the burden of epilepsy-related deaths. MEDLINE and Embase were searched from conception to 26/12/2018 for systematic reviews evaluating all-cause mortality in PWE of any age. Independent study selection, data extraction and quality assessment were performed. Deaths were separated into epilepsy-related and unrelated using a recently published classification system. Outcomes included standardized mortality ratio (SMR) and mortality rate (MR) in a primary analysis of comparative risks, causes, and risk factors for all-cause and epilepsy-related mortality. A narrative synthesis of review findings was used to present results, including from a secondary analysis of individual epilepsy-related death risk factors. Six moderate or high-quality systematic reviews were included in the primary analysis, evaluating 103 observational studies. All-cause mortality remained similarly high between 1950 and present (median SMR range 2.2–3.4). Africa had the highest SMR (median 5.4, range 2.6–7.2). SMRs were also higher for children
ISSN:0920-1211
1872-6844
DOI:10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2019.106192