The yield and clinical utility of outpatient short-term video-electroencephalographic monitoring: A five-year retrospective study

Diagnostic yield of short-term video-EEG monitoring for epilepsy and PNESs: A European assessment

“…Regarding costs, a recent study from Australia suggested that SVEM may be as much as four times cheaper than LVEM [7]. In light of the present data, it seems indeed reasonable to consider SVEM as an effective tool, particularly for diagnosis of PNESs and epilepsy, as it allows considerable time-saving compared with LVEM.…”

“…The practical value of SVEM in capturing PNESs has been described with proportions ranging from 16.8% to 67% [6,7,[15][16][17][18][19]. The present analysis, with a diagnostic yield of more than 50% (12 out of the 24 patients suspected for PNESs had, effectively, a definite diagnosis of PNESs plus one patient with concomitant PNESs and epilepsy), lies on the upper part of this range.…”

“…Regarding suspected epilepsy, the diagnostic yield found in a recent Australian study analyzing 175 outpatient SVEM records of adults referred over a period of 5 years [7] was only 7% for epileptic seizures. However, in another analysis evaluating the role of short-term video-EEG monitoring on 45 children younger than 12 years of age with frequent intractable seizures undergoing SVEM (a video-EEG was done on an outpatient basis until an event was recorded or for a minimum period of 6 h), a diagnostic accuracy of 40% was found for epileptic seizures, which is broadly similar to ours (57%) [13].…”

“…This may have a favorable impact on resource availability, as well as patients' and staff time-commitment. However, exact financial implications depend on the different health-care system and resource availabilities [7].…”

“…In between outpatient "routine" EEG and LVEM lies short-term video-EEG monitoring (SVEM), an elective procedure typically lasting less than 24 h [5]; this is emerging as a less resource-and costintensive procedure compared with LVEM [6,7]. However, there are relatively few studies on its yield among a broad range of diagnostic groups.…”