Epilepsy syndromes in Iran: A systematic review

Abstract

This study aimed to systematically review the literature on the epidemiology of epilepsy in Iran and to provide analytical estimates of the prevalence of various epilepsy syndromes. MEDLINE, Scopus, and Embase from inception to 30 July 2020 were systematically searched. These key words were used: “epilepsy” OR “seizure” AND “Iran.” In the second part of the study, the prevalence of various epilepsy syndromes in Iran was estimated based on the data from previous studies. We could identify 17 related articles. Three studies had class 2, and the rest provided class 4 of evidence. Two population‐based studies provided the prevalence rate of epilepsy in Iran: 0.8% and 1.2%. In one clinic‐based study, 20.2% of the patients were diagnosed as having idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE). In another clinic‐based study, 5.4% of the patients were diagnosed to have Lennox‐Gastaut syndrome. No study has provided data on focal epilepsy syndromes other than temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) in Iran. While high‐quality data from Iran on the epidemiology of epilepsy syndromes are scarce, based on the available data and extrapolations form other data from other world regions, we can estimate that the prevalence of epilepsy in Iran is about 1% and about 840,000 people currently have active epilepsy. From the whole population of people with epilepsy in Iran, about 168,000 people have IGEs, tens of thousands suffer from symptomatic generalized epilepsies, and approximately, 126,000–226,800 people suffer from TLE. There is a need for well‐designed population‐based epidemiological studies on the topic.

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