ReviewEpilepsia2020
COVID-19 and seizures: Is there a link?
Review in Epilepsia, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 47 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
47 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 93 citations in OpenAlex.
- Cerebrospinal fluid findings in patients with seizure in the setting of COVID-19: A review of the literature.Seizure · 2021Pooled it
- Neurological manifestations and complications of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC neurology · 2021Pooled it
- Incidence, mortality, and management of status epilepticus from 2012 to 2022: An 11-year nationwide study.Epilepsia · 2026Article
- Clinical Features of Central Nervous System Complications Caused by the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron Variant.Immunity, inflammation and disease · 2025Article
- Article
- Risk of new-onset seizures following immunization against COVID-19: a self-controlled case-series study.Epidemiology and health · 2025Article
- The Development of Epilepsy Following CNS Viral Infections: Mechanisms.Current neurology and neuroscience reports · 2024Review
- Article
- Clinical outcomes of patients with seizure admitted for COVID-19: Findings from the Philippine CORONA study.Heliyon · 2024Article
- COVID-19 vaccinations for patients with epilepsy in Guizhou Province, China: A cross-sectional study.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Clinical characteristics and outcomes of COVID-19-associated encephalopathy in children.Journal of neurovirology · 2024Article
- Mendelian randomization reveals no causal relationship between COVID-19 susceptibility, hospitalization, or severity and epilepsy.Epilepsia open · 2023Article
- Incidence of Epilepsy and Seizures Over the First 6 Months After a COVID-19 Diagnosis: A Retrospective Cohort Study.Neurology · 2023Article
- Neurological Presentations in Patients with COVID-19 in Cytokine Storm.The Canadian journal of neurological sciences. Le journal canadien des sciences neurologiques · 2023Article
- Focal and generalized onset seizures in children post-COVID (Omicron) recovery: 3 clinical case reports.Epilepsy & behavior reports · 2023Article
- Case 34-2022: A 57-Year-Old Woman with Covid-19 and Delusions.The New England journal of medicine · 2022Article
- Long-term analysis of the effects of COVID-19 in people with epilepsy: Results from a multicenter on-line survey across the pandemic waves.Epilepsy & behavior : E&B · 2022Article
- Treatment of COVID-19-induced refractory status epilepticus by tocilizumab.European journal of neurology · 2022Article
- Seizures and COVID-19: Results from the Spanish Society of Neurology's COVID-19 registry.Journal of clinical neuroscience : official journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia · 2022Observational
- Tonic non-colonic convulsions-status epilepticus- as the presenting complaint of COVID-19.Annals of medicine and surgery (2012) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The rapid spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic poses particular challenges to the management of persons with chronic disease. Reports of a possible neuroinvasiveness of SARS-CoV-2 as well as pathophysiological mechanisms and indirect consequences in severe COVID-19 cases raise the question of whether the infection can be associated with an increased risk of seizure recurrence or the development of new onset and acute symptomatic seizures. Although the literature does not provide relevant evidence for seizure worsening in persons with epilepsy during the course of a SARS-CoV-2 infection, there are theoretical risks, for example, seizures triggered by fever. Moreover, a severe disease course and advanced disease stages can, for instance, result in hypoxic encephalopathy, cerebrovascular events, and cytokine storm, which may trigger the development of acute seizures. This is further confirmed by reports of occasional seizures in COVID-19 patients. Although the low number of reports so far suggests that the risk may be relatively low, the reports indicate that an early neurological manifestation with seizures should not be ruled out. In the context of these cases, we discuss possible pathophysiological mechanisms that may trigger ictogenesis in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.