Quantitative Electroencephalography Findings in Treatment- resistant and Responsive Patients with Idiopathic Generalized Tonic-Clonic Epilepsy

Background: With roughly 50 million people affected in the world, epilepsy is a particularly important disorder of the brain commonly diagnosed based on findings of quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG). The present investigation was aimed to evaluate differences in QEEG readings of drug-resistant and drug-responsive patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) with tonic-clonic seizures in a northwestern Iranian population. Methods: : A total of 60 participants, consisting of 30 drug-resistant and 30 drug-responsive patients with IGE, were enrolled. Data, including demographic information and Z-transformed absolute power values of QEEG in anterior, central and posterior alpha, beta, delta and theta bands were collected. The analysis was conducted using IBM SPSS and a p-value<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: : Of the 60 participants with a mean age of 31.55 ± 10.48, 41 (68.3%) were female and 19 (31.7%) were male. Statistically significant differences were observed in anterior alpha, beta and theta bands, central alpha, beta, delta and theta bands, and posterior beta, delta and theta bands between the two groups, with the absolute power Z-scores of drug-resistant group being significantly higher than the other (P-values<0.05). Abnormal EEGs were recorded for 16 (53.3%) and 5 (23.8%) patients from the drug-resistant and drug-response groups, respectively, indicating a significant difference (P-value=0.006). Female patients were more likely to have drug-resistant disease than male participants (P-value=0.003). Conclusions: : QEEG is a valuable diagnostic test for prognostication of patients with IGE, or follow-up of patients with regards to their treatment. QEEGs with normal readings indicate a more favorable prognosis, compared with those containing abnormal findings.