Could Sepsis Increase Long-Term Seizure Risk?

Survivors of sepsis have a significantly higher risk of seizures over the long term than individuals in the general population, according to a retrospective study.

Past research has shown that sepsis is linked with a short-term risk of seizures, but researchers wanted to find out whether that risk continues after resolution of sepsis. To investigate, the study’s authors evaluated records from a database of administrative claims on all emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalizations at nonfederal acute care hospitals in California, Florida, and New York.

According to the analysis, there were 842,723 patients with sepsis from 2005-2013, excluding patients who had a previous history of seizures. Researchers then compared this cohort with a cohort of patients who were discharged from the hospital during the same 2005-2013 period and did not have sepsis. The comparison cohort was formed from the same dataset and was matched to the patients with sepsis for age, sex, race, and insurance, among other factors.
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Annually, 1.28% of patients with sepsis had seizures compared with 0.1589% of individuals in the general population. During 8 years of follow-up, survivors of sepsis had a cumulative seizure rate of 6.67%, compared with 1.27% among the general population.

A confirmatory analysis using beneficiaries of Medicare indicated that hospitalization for sepsis was less strongly associated with subsequent seizures. As a result, the study’s authors conducted a post-hoc subgroup analysis of the data, stratified by age. In this sub-group analysis, the association between sepsis and seizures in patients aged 65 or older was similar to the association in the Medicare analysis, and sepsis and seizures were more strongly associated in individuals aged less than 65 years.

Although more research is needed, the study’s author speculated that sepsis may be “associated with pathways that lead to permanent neurological sequelae.”

—Lauren LeBano

Reference

Reznick M, Merkler A, Mahta A, Murthy S, Claasen J, Kamel H. Long-term risk of seizures in survivors of sepsis. Abstract S5.003. Presented at the American Academy of Neurology Meeting 2017.