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Abstract
Objective: To estimate the pooled incidence of epilepsy from published studies and investigate sources of heterogeneity in the estimates.
Methods: We searched online databases for incidence studies and used meta-analytic methods to analyze the data.
Results: Thirty-three articles met the entry criteria. The median incidence of epilepsy was 50.4/100,000/year (interquartile range [IQR] 33.6–75.6), while it was 45.0 (IQR 30.3–66.7) for high-income countries and 81.7 (IQR 28.0–239.5) for low- and middle-income countries. Population-based studies had higher incidence estimates than hospital-based studies (p = 0.02) while retrospective study design was associated with lower estimates than prospective studies (p = 0.04).
Conclusion: We provide data that could potentially be used to assess the burden and analyze the trends in incidence of epilepsy. Our results support the need for large population-based incidence studies of epilepsy.
Glossary
- GLOSSARY
- CI=
- confidence interval;
- HIC=
- high-income countries;
- IQR=
- interquartile range;
- LMIC=
- low- and middle-income countries
Footnotes
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Study funding: Supported by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) and the Wellcome Trust (United Kingdom) under a grant awarded to C.R.N. (No. 083744). A.K.N. is supported by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Training Award (No. 084538). J.W.S. is based at University College London Hospital/University College London's Comprehensive Biomedical Research Centre, which received a proportion of funding from the UK Department of Health's National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research Centres funding scheme. The sponsors played no role in the study design, data collection, analysis, interpretation of data, writing of the article, or the decision to submit for publication.
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Supplemental data at www.neurology.org
- Received March 14, 2011.
- Accepted May 12, 2011.
- Copyright © 2011 by AAN Enterprises, Inc.
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