ArticleNeurology2015
Sudden cardiac arrest in people with epilepsy in the community: Circumstances and risk factors.
Article in Neurology, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 72 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cardiac structural and functional abnormalities in epilepsy: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Epilepsia open · 2023Pooled it
- Epidemiology and pathophysiology of autonomic seizures: a systematic review.Clinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society · 2019Pooled it
- Age-Specific Mechanisms of Sudden Death Associated With Epilepsy.JACC. Clinical electrophysiology · 2025Article
- The 30-Day Risk of Sudden Death in Patients With Epilepsy: A 10-Year Population-Based Cohort Study.Journal of clinical neurology (Seoul, Korea) · 2025Article
- Examining the role of physical activity in older adults with epilepsy.Epilepsy & behavior reports · 2025Review
- Cardiovascular Effects of Antiseizure Medications for Epilepsy.CNS drugs · 2025Review
- Article
- Review
- Characteristics of deceased subjects transported to a postmortem imaging center due to unusual death related to epilepsy.Epilepsia open · 2024Article
- Expert opinion on diagnosis and management of epilepsy-associated comorbidities.Epilepsia open · 2024Review
- Sudden death in epilepsy: the overlap between cardiac and neurological factors.Brain communications · 2024Review
- Sudden death of a patient with epilepsy: When Brugada syndrome mimicry can be fatal.HeartRhythm case reports · 2022Article
- Brain, heart, and sudden death.Current journal of neurology · 2022Review
- Autonomic manifestations of epilepsy: emerging pathways to sudden death?Nature reviews. Neurology · 2021Review
- Loss-of-function variants in KAnnals of clinical and translational neurology · 2021Article
- Recurrent seizures in a young woman: when video-EEG diagnoses a cardiac cause: a case report.European heart journal. Case reports · 2020Article
- Cardiac arrhythmias in Dravet syndrome: an observational multicenter study.Annals of clinical and translational neurology · 2020Observational
- The yield of long-term electrocardiographic recordings in refractory focal epilepsy.Epilepsia · 2019Article
- Autonomic aspects of sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).Clinical autonomic research : official journal of the Clinical Autonomic Research Society · 2019Review
- Blood Pressure in Seizures and Epilepsy.Frontiers in neurology · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo ascertain whether characteristics of ventricular tachycardia/fibrillation (VT/VF) differed between people with epilepsy and those without and which individuals with epilepsy were at highest risk.
methodsWe ascertained 18 people with active epilepsy identified in a community-based registry of sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) with ECG-confirmed VT/VF (cases). We compared them with 470 individuals with VT/VF without epilepsy (VT/VF controls) and 54 individuals with epilepsy without VT/VF (epilepsy controls). Data on comorbidity, epilepsy severity, and medication use were collected and entered into (conditional) logistic regression models to identify determinants of VT/VF in epilepsy.
resultsIn most cases, there was an obvious (10/18) or presumed cardiovascular cause (5/18) in view of preexisting heart disease. In 2 of the 3 remaining events, near-sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) was established after successful resuscitation. Cases had a higher prevalence of congenital/inherited heart disease (17% vs 1%, p = 0.002), and experienced VT/VF at younger age (57 vs 64 years, p = 0.023) than VT/VF controls. VT/VF in cases occurred more frequently at/near home (89% vs 58%, p = 0.009), and was less frequently witnessed (72% vs 89%, p = 0.048) than in VT/VF controls. Cases more frequently had clinically relevant heart disease (50% vs 15%, p = 0.005) and intellectual disability (28% vs 1%, p < 0.001) than epilepsy controls.
conclusionCardiovascular disease rather than epilepsy characteristics is the main determinant of VT/VF in people with epilepsy in the community. SCA and SUDEP are partially overlapping disease entities.
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