Retrospective evaluation of repeating risk factors in patients with febril convulsion

FC is the convulsions encountered during the incidence of an inflammatory disease in 6 months to 5 years-old children with no afebrile convulsion history without any infection involving central nervous system or any other reason diagnosed (electrolyte imbalance, metabolic disturbance, intoxication and trauma). Febrile convulsion is the most frequent type of convulsion in children, and it is on the highest position among the childhood neurologic disorders. In this study, it is aimed to determine the FC recurrence risk factors of the patients and evaluate the efficiency of different treatment alternatives during the follow-up period by determining the characteristics of 171 patients diagnosed with FC in the Neurology polyclinic of Manisa Celal Bayar University Hospital between the dates of 01.01.2010 and 01.01.2019. In the study, the male/female rate was determined as 1.25/1 in children diagnosed with FC. In the histories of our patients, preterm birth was detected in 27 patients (15.8%), neurologic development deficiency was detected in 9 patients (5.3%). The number of cases who had febrile convulsion when they are 12-months old or younger at first was 68 (39.8%) while the number was 103 (60.2%) for those who had when they are older. 40.6% of the first FC was simple and 59.4% was complicated. The onset of disease under age 1, febrile convulsion history, fever below 39oC during the first febrile convulsion and period shorter than 1 hour between fever and attack were considered as major risk factors for the recurrence of febrile convulsion. There was recurrence in 21 (12.2%) of the patients. Recurrence was occurred in 4 of 47 cases with febrile convulsion history while it was occurred in 17 of 124 cases with no history. No statically significant difference was detected (p=0.35) within this scope. There was no statically significant difference determined between the cases whose first febrile convulsion age is 12-months or below and those whose first febrile convulsion age is above 12-months in terms of recurrence (p=0.52). The difference between the patients with fever below 39oC and those with fever above 39oC during the first febrile convulsion was considered as insignificant in terms of attack recurrence (p=0.65). No significant difference was detected in terms of recurrence when considering the period between fever and attack (p=0.79). Our findings are not sufficiently compatible with the literature, so we consider that it was because of that families are not able to properly take their child's fever in time and they could not remember every detail as it is a retrospective study. There was no statistical difference in terms of recurrence between the group who received prophylactic treatment and those who did not. No significant difference was also detected between the groups who had intermittent rectal diazepam with long-term use of phenobarbital and valproate for prophylactic treatment in terms of recurrence rates. The most frequent recurrence was detected in the group using Phenobarbital with the rate of 14%, while the less frequent was in the group using valproate with 10%. However, the inequality of numbers of patients taking medicine and not taking any medicine as well as the difference of follow-up periods discredited this study.