![]() ![]() Between November 2009 and June 2012, patients were seen for “possible” or “drug-resistant” epilepsy, and were assessed for recurrent syncope of unknown cause using European Society of Cardiology (ESC) guidelines. To better understand the overlap between epileptic seizures and syncope, researchers conducted a multicenter prospective observational study of 107 adults seen in four Italian epilepsy centers. Some misdiagnosed patients may also be classified as having “drug-resistant” epilepsy, and are at additional risk of harm because their underlying disorder goes untreated. Past research has suggested that between 20-40% of people diagnosed with epilepsy may have been misdiagnosed with the condition, 3 putting them at risk of unnecessary harms and costs from AEDs. In addition, syncope and epilepsy can coexist in the same patient, by pure chance or by shared pathophysiology. Syncope may also trigger a seizure in patients who do not necessarily have epilepsy. Syncope is common in the general population, and its symptoms can mimic seizures, including myoclonic jerks, oral automatism, head-turning, and (rarely) urinary incontinence. Syncope represents the most frequent misdiagnosis in epilepsy, 2 yet common presentations between the two problems complicate the differential diagnosis. “The data supports the high frequency of coexisting epilepsy and syncope in the group with drug-resistant epilepsy (65.9%), and highlight the importance of a careful clinical characterization of transient loss of consciousness episode that requires a careful knowledge of signs and symptoms of syncope and epilepsy,” they also wrote. However, the study also found that a high percentage of people with “drug-resistant epilepsy” actually had both syncope and epilepsy. This data also confirms that in clinical practice AEDs should be started when the diagnosis is definite,” wrote first author Andrea Ungar, MD, PhD, of the University of Florence (Florence, Italy), and colleagues. “In more than 70% of patients with possible epilepsy, the final diagnosis of epilepsy was not confirmed… At the end of the evaluation, AEDs were discontinued in more than 30% of patients suggesting a high percentage of true misdiagnosis of epilepsy in our study. A large percentage of people with possible epilepsy who have had recurrent transient loss of consciousness may be misdiagnosed and mismanaged with antiepileptic medication, according to results from the Overlap between Epilepsy and Syncope Study (OESYS) published online in BMC Neurology. ![]()
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