Yoshiki Ito, Nobuhiro Hata, Satoshi Maesawa, Takafumi Tanei, Tomotaka Ishizaki, Manabu Mutoh, Miki Hashida, Yutaka Kobayashi, Ryuta Saito

Characteristics of deceased subjects transported to a postmortem imaging center due to unusual death related to epilepsy

  • Neurology (clinical)
  • Neurology
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AbstractObjectivePatients with epilepsy have high risk of experiencing uncommon causes of death. This study aimed to evaluate patients who underwent unusual deaths related to epilepsy and identify factors that may contribute to these deaths and may also include sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).MethodsWe analyzed 5291 cases in which a postmortem imaging (PMI) study was performed using plane CT, because of an unexplained death. A rapid troponin T assay was performed using peripheral blood samples. Clinical information including the cause of death suspected by the attending physician, body position, place of death, medical history, and antiseizure medications was evaluated.ResultsA total of 132 (2.6%) patients had an obvious history of epilepsy, while 5,159 individuals had no history of epilepsy (97.4%). Cerebrovascular disease was the cause of death in 1.6% of patients in the group with epilepsy, and this was significantly lower than that in the non‐epilepsy group. However, drowning was significantly higher (9.1% vs. 4.4%). Unspecified cause of death was significantly more frequent in the epilepsy group (78.0% vs. 57.8%). Furthermore, the proportion of patients who demonstrated elevation of troponin T levels without prior cardiac disease was significantly higher in the epilepsy group (37.9% vs. 31.1%). At discovery of death, prone position was dominant (30.3%), with deaths occurring most commonly in the bedroom (49.2%). No antiseizure medication had been prescribed in 12% of cases, whilst 29.5% of patients were taking multiple antiseizure medications.SignificanceThe prevalence of epilepsy in individuals experiencing unusual death was higher than in the general population. Despite PMI studies, no definitive cause of death was identified in a significant proportion of cases. The high troponin T levels may be explained by long intervals between death and examination or by higher incidence of myocardial damage at the time of death.

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