Characteristics of the ischemic stroke patients whose seizures occur at stroke presentation at a single institution in Eastern China

Abstract Purpose We compared clinical characteristics and outcomes of the early-onset seizure post-stroke patients who had seizures occurring at stroke presentation (SSP) with other patients without SSP at a single institution in Eastern China. Methods We reviewed 20,947 ischemic stroke patients in our hospital electronic medical records system from January 2007 to December 2016. Among them, there were 91 (0.43%) patients with early-onset seizure post-stroke. Among these 91 patients, there were 35 (0.16%) SSP patients and another 56 (0.27%) were designated as non SSP patients because they also had early-onset seizure post-stroke, but without SSP. We compared the clinical presentations of the SSP patients with those of the non SSP patients including baseline stroke risk factors, and 10-year Kaplan-Meier death risk after their first stroke. Results In the SSP patients, 25.7% of them presented with posterior circulation infarction, whereas only 12.5% of the non SSP patients had this condition ( P P P P P >  0.05). In the SSP patients group, the 10-year risk of death was 36.9% after the initial seizure incident, and in the non SSP patients group, the 10-year death risk was 40.1%, but this difference between the two groups was not significant ( P  > 0.05). Conclusions Ischemic stroke patients with SSP had some unique signs that included a higher incidence of posterior circulation infarction than non SSP patients.