Alcohol for seizure induction in the epilepsy monitoring unit.

Seizure induction techniques are used in the epilepsy monitoring unit (EMU) to increase diagnostic yield and reduce length of stay. There are insufficient data on the efficacy of alcohol as an induction technique. We performed a retrospective cohort study using six years of EMU data at our institution. We compared cases who received alcohol for seizure induction to matched controls who did not. The groups were matched on the following variables: age, reason for admission, length of stay, number of antiseizure medications (ASM) at admission, whether ASMs were tapered during admission, and presence of interictal epileptiform discharges. We used both propensity score and exact matching strategies. We compared the likelihood of epileptic seizures and nonepileptic events in cases versus controls using Kaplan-Meier time-to-event analysis, as well as odds ratios for these outcomes occurring at any time during the admission. We analyzed 256 cases who received alcohol (median dose 2.5 standard drinks) and 256 propensity score-matched controls. Cases who received alcohol were no more likely than controls to have an epileptic seizure (X Alcohol was not an effective induction technique in the EMU. This finding has implications for counseling patients with epilepsy about the risks of drinking alcohol in moderation in their daily lives.

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Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.