Etiologies for Seizures Around the Time of Vaccination found in 65%!!
Its important to have an expedited evaluation by an epilepsy specialist. JR
Post-immunization epilepsy likely not related to vaccine: study
(Reuters Health) - Children who start having seizures soon after a vaccination and go on to develop epilepsy usually turn out to have an underlying cause of the seizure disorder, according to a new study published in Pediatrics.
"It's reassuring to hear that with follow-up testing, the vast majority of these cases can be identified as coming from a different cause," Dr. Shannon MacDonald told Reuters Health.
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In the days after receiving a vaccine, compared to other times, children are two to five times more likely to have a febrile seizure, according to the authors of the new study.
"When a child has its first seizure shortly after a vaccination, and continues to have seizures thereafter, parents may think the vaccination has caused the epilepsy. However, in our study the majority of children who developed epilepsy after a vaccination, had a genetic or structural cause of the epilepsy," Dr. Nienke Verbeek, a clinical geneticist at University Medical Centre Utrecht in The Netherlands, told Reuters Health.
"In these children, the vaccination should only be considered a trigger for the first seizure that thereby unmasks the child’s underlying susceptibility for epilepsy," Verbeek added.
Roughly one in every 100 healthy, normally developing children will develop epilepsy after a febrile seizure, according to NINDS, but children with certain conditions, including cerebral palsy and developmental delay, are at greater risk.
To better understand the relationship between febrile seizures and epilepsy, the researchers looked at nearly a thousand children who had a first seizure within several days of being vaccinated. Twenty-six of the children were later diagnosed with epilepsy, and the researchers were able to follow up with 23 of them.
Eight of the children had Dravet syndrome, a rare genetic condition in which seizures may be brought on by fever, infectious disease, or vaccination. Three of the children had developmental delays and structural brain defects that could cause epilepsy. Four other children had gene mutations that could cause epilepsy, brain malformations, or a family history of the disease.
"Although no underlying cause was detected in one-third of children with epilepsy with vaccination-related onset, a genetic basis of epilepsy in these children is still possible: genetic analyses were incomplete, some children had positive family histories for seizures, and molecular defects underlying many genetically determined epilepsies have yet to be discovered," Verbeek and her colleagues write.
"For parents it is important to understand that a genetic cause (a so called DNA-mutation) for epilepsy cannot be induced by vaccinations," Verbeek told Reuters Health. " These mutations are already present in the child before it is born. They may have been transmitted by one of the parents, but more commonly have occurred spontaneously around the time of conception."
The findings “provide a pretty strong case that this was not caused by the vaccination,” Dr. Jorn Olsen told Reuters Health in a telephone interview.
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SOURCE: Pediatrics, online September 15, 2014.
OBJECTIVES: This study was an assessment of the incidence, course, and etiology of epilepsy with vaccination-related seizure onset in a population-based cohort of children.
METHODS: The medical data of 990 children with seizures after vaccination in the first 2 years of life, reported to the National Institute for Public Health and Environment in the Netherlands in 1997 through 2006, were reviewed. Follow-up data were obtained of children who were subsequently diagnosed with epilepsy and had had seizure onset within 24 hours after administration of an inactivated vaccine or 5 to 12 days after a live attenuated vaccine.
RESULTS: Follow-up was available for 23 of 26 children (median age: 10.6 years) with epilepsy onset after vaccination. Twelve children developed epileptic encephalopathy, 8 had benign epilepsy, and 3 had encephalopathy before seizure onset. Underlying causes were identified in 15 children (65%) and included SCN1A–related Dravet syndrome (formerly severe myoclonic epilepsy of infancy) or genetic epilepsy with febrile seizures plus syndrome (n = 8 and n= 1, respectively), a protocadherin 19 mutation, a 1qter microdeletion, neuronal migration disorders (n = 2), and other monogenic familial epilepsy (n= 2).
CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that in most cases, genetic or structural defects are the underlying cause of epilepsy with onset after vaccination, including both cases with preexistent encephalopathy or benign epilepsy with good outcome. These results have significant added value in counseling of parents of children with vaccination-related first seizures, and they might help to support public faith in vaccination programs.
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