Clinical characteristics and prognosis of children with hyperpyretic convulsion

  Objective  To analyze the clinical features and prognosis of children with hyperpyretic convulsion.

  Methods  A total of 241 children with hyperpyretic convulsion admitted to our hospital were enrolled in this study. The clinical characteristics of the children including age distribution, gender ratio, onset seasons, times of convulsions, primary disease, family history, electroencephalogram characteristics, head CT, and treatment methods were analyzed. All patients were followed up for 2 years. According to whether recurrence of hyperpyretic convulsion during follow-up, the patients were divided into recurrent group(n=74) and control group(n=167). The clinical features including the relapse frequency and time of the recurrent group were analyzed. The recurrence factors of hyperpyretic convulsion including age, body temperature, duration, attack types, and family history of the first onset of hyperpyretic convulsion of children were analyzed.

  Results  Out of 241 children with hyperpyretic convulsion, 206 cases (85.48%) aged 6 months to 3 years accounted for the highest proportion. There were 149 cases (61.83%) with simple convulsions and 92 (38.17%) with complicated convulsions, 117 cases with a family history of convulsions (48.55%) and 11 with a family history of epilepsy (4.56%). The primary disease was mainly upper respiratory tract infections in 146 cases (60.58%). During follow-up, 228 (94.61%) children with hyperpyretic convulsion had a good prognosis, 7 (2.90%) transformed to epilepsy, 3 (1.24%) had brain injury, and 74 (30.71%) had recurrence of convulsion. Age ≤ 3 years old, complex convulsion, family history of convulsions and epilepsy, the number of first onset of convulsion ≥ 2 times, and the first episode temperature ≥ 39 ℃ were risk factors for recurrence of hyperpyretic convulsion.

  Conclusion  Generally, children with hyperpyretic convulsion have a good prognosis. For children with high risk of recurrence after first episode of hyperpyretic convulsion, preventive treatment should be carried out timely, and relevant health education as well as first aid knowledge should be popularized for parents to reduce poor prognosis rate.