Assessing Electrocardiographic Parameters in the Patients With Drug-resistant Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: A Case-control Study

Introduction: Sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) is the substantial cause of death in patients with epilepsy (PWE). Electroconductive disorders leading to life-threatening arrhythmia are mostly hypothesized to play a crucial role; however, there is paucity of knowledge in variable among the patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) compared to the healthy controls. Methods: The current case-control study has been conducted on 50 drug-resistant TLE patients as the cases and 50 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects selected from their first-degree family members. ECGs were taken when admitted at the hospital (base line), immediately after a seizure incidence and within an hour after the end of the seizure from the cases compared with a random ECG of the controls considering parameters including PR-, RR-, and corrected QT interval (QTc), P wave duration and heart rate (HR) variability. Results: Shorter corrected QTc interval was notified among the drug-resistant TLE patients compared to the controls (P-value=0.017) in the base line taken ECGs, while the assessments immediately after the seizure revealed significant differences in terms of RR-interval (P-value=0.005) and heart rate (P-value=0.005). Post-ictal ECGs did not differ between the groups (P-value>0.05). Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, shortened QTc interval at base line ECGs, shortened RR interval and increased HR during the seizure were the ECG elements affected in drug-resistant TLE patients; however, to generalize the outcomes, further studies are required.