ASSESSMENT OF IONIZED CALCIUM STATUS IN FEBRILE SEIZURES

Description

Introduction: Epilepsy is one of the most common disorders of the brain1. One of every ten people will have at least one epileptic seizure during a normal lifespan, and a third of these will develop epilepsy. In children the most common forms of convulsion are febrile seizures. Water electrolyte imbalance occurs during acute febrile illness and hypocalcaemia is one of them. Hypocalcaemia is also present in cases of seizures. To find out significance of calcium levels in cases of seizures this study was conducted.
Aims and objectives: To assess the level of ionized calcium in cases of febrile seizure.
Methods: This Case - Control study was conducted on fifty cases of febrile seizures and fifty age, weight matched controls at Department of Biochemistry, Varun Arjun Medical College, Shahjahanpur,U.P., India.
Results: Mean ionized calcium level was 4.62 ±0.26mg/dl and 4.88 ±0.27 mg/dl in study and control groups respectively and this difference was found statistically highly significant (p<0.001).
Conclusion: The findings suggest that a considerable percentage of children having febrile seizures suffer from calcium deficiency.