[EEG examination in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus]

We examined a group of 83 patients (81 females and 2 males, aged 19-77) diagnosed as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), with the mean duration of the disease of seven years. All patients underwent neurological examination and EEG. We found pathological EEG in 41 cases. The most frequent abnormalities were paroxysmal focal changes (22 subjects) and abnormalities in background activity (19 cases). In the studied group only six patients had epileptic attacks so it is an evident disproportion between the number of patients with epilepsy and the number of paroxysmal changes in EEG. These changes need a special control because of the possibility of epileptic evolution in the future. Patients without neurological deficits also had abnormalities in EEG suggesting the presence of subclinical involvement of central nervous system in SLE. In our group we had much lower incidence of epilepsy in SLE than described in literature. It is probably connected with improving diagnostics and therapy of SLE.