Aetiology and long‐term outcome of juvenile epilepsy in 136 dogs

Abstract

The aetiology and outcome of dogs with juvenile-onset seizures were investigated. One hundred and thirty-six dogs whose first seizure occurred before the age of one year were investigated. One hundred and two dogs were diagnosed with idiopathic epilepsy (IE), 23 with symptomatic epilepsy (SE), nine with reactive seizures (RS) and two with probable symptomatic epilepsy (pSE). The outcome was known in 114 dogs; 37 per cent died or were euthanased as a consequence of seizures. The mean survival time of this population of dogs was 7.1 years. Factors that were significantly associated with survival outcome included the diagnosis of SE and the number of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) used before investigation. The use of one AED before investigation and a diagnosis of SE were associated with a negative outcome, whereas receiving no AED medications before referral was associated with a longer survival. For dogs with IE, survival time was shortened if the dog was a border collie or with a history of status epilepticus;receiving no AEDs before referral in the IE group was associated with a positive outcome. Seizure-free status was achieved in 22 per cent of dogs diagnosed with IE. While the survival times were longer than previously reported in canine epilepsy, similar remission rates to those reported in childhood epilepsy, where a 70 per cent remission rate is documented, were not seen in the canine juvenile population.

Clinical Risk Factors Associated with Anti-Epileptic Drug Responsiveness in Canine Epilepsy

“…This result has previously been found in human epilepsy [37]. The number of epileptic dogs that experience cluster seizures varies between studies, with recent reports between 38% and 64% [20], [38]. The breed least likely to achieve remission in this study was the Border Collie, a breed previously demonstrated to have a higher level of cluster seizures than other breeds (84.6% affected) [20], with similar levels reported in other studies (e.g.…”

“…Early age at seizure onset has been previously identified in children to be a predictor of pharmacoresistance [54]. In contrast, in a study of canine juvenile epilepsy (where the first seizure occurs before the age of one year), age at onset had no influence on survival outcome [20].…”

Risk factors for cluster seizures in canine idiopathic epilepsy

“…The temporal distribution of epileptic seizures is an important prognostic factor in IE, with dogs experiencing CS less likely to achieve remission (Packer et al, 2014), experiencing a decreased survival time (Arrol et al, 2012;Berendt et al, 2007;Monteiro et al, 2012;Saito et al, 2001) and an increased likelihood of euthanasia (Fredso et al, 2014) compared to dogs with single epileptic seizure episodes.…”

Long‐term efficacy of imepitoin in the treatment of naive dogs affected by idiopathic epilepsy

“…Caution needs to be adopted in trying to compare the percentage of therapeutic success between different studies due to the extreme variability in terms of AEDs used, inclusion criteria and follow-up duration (Heynold and others 1997, Berendt and others 2007, Arrol and others 2012). Not many reports detail the seizure-free state at a specific follow-up end point (De Risio 2014a) and the recent revision of the definition of seizure-free state (Potschka and others 2015) prevents an effective comparison of their results with those of previous studies.…”