Morbidity and mortality of childhood- and adolescent-onset epilepsy: A controlled national study

•Childhood and adolescent onset epilepsy cause increased morbidity and mortality, especially among those with early onset.•The increased morbidity was found in all health care domains.•Health professionals should raise awareness of health issues in epilepsy patients in order to reduce health consequences.

PurposeEpilepsy is associated with significant morbidities and mortality. We aimed to evaluate the 30-year morbidities and mortality in a national group of patients after a first diagnosis of epilepsy.MethodsFrom the Danish National Patient Registry (NPR), in total, 3123 patients with epilepsy aged 0-5 years and 5018 patients aged 6-20 years diagnosed in 1998-2002 were identified and compared with, respectively, 6246 and 10,036 persons matched for age, gender, and place of living with randomly chosen citizens from the Danish Civil Registration System Statistics. In the NPR, all morbidities in the following 30 years were grouped into major WHO disease classes.Key findingsPatients with epilepsy had significantly higher rates of comorbidities including almost all health-related comorbidities compared with controls. Mortality rates were elevated: the hazard ratio (5%; 95% CI) was 14.46 (11.8; 17.7, p < 0.001) and 5.58 (4.9; 6.4, P < 0.001) for patients aged 0-5 years and 6-20 years at first diagnosis of epilepsy, respectively.SignificanceEpilepsy is associated with significant comorbidities and mortality including all health care domains, especially among persons who were young at the onset of epilepsy.