Maternal and fetal outcome in women with epilepsy associated with neurocysticercosis

We wanted to characterize the clinical profile and outcome of pregnancy in women with epilepsy due to neurocysticercosis (NCC) enrolled in the Indian Registry of Epilepsy and Pregnancy (IREP).

We identified all women with NCC in the IREP between January 2000 and September 2005. Age- and parity-matched patients without NCC were identified from the respective centers of IREP for comparison. Statistical analysis was performed using SPSS version 11.

There were 30 women with NCC (mean age 24.3 +/- 4 years) among 1071 registrations in the IREP. All the patients had NCC prior to the pregnancy. Fourteen (47%) NCC patients had calcified lesions and 16 (53%) had ring lesions in a CT scan of the brain. Compared to women without NCC, the NCC group had later age-at-onset of seizures (20.7 +/- 4.4 years, p = 0.008) and epilepsy (21.1 +/- 5.2 years, p = 0.01). They were more likely to have partial seizures (70% versus 30%, p = 0.002), an EEG without epileptiform abnormalities (50% versus 100%, p = 0.01), and better control of seizures before (47% versus 3%, p = 0.001) and during pregnancy (33% versus 10%, p = 0.02). Maternal and neonatal complications did not differ between the groups.

NCC is an uncommon cause of epilepsy in pregnant women enrolled in IREP. To be noted, as a limitation of our study, that the IREP is a hospital-based registry, which may not reflect global epilepsy characteristics of the community. The maternal and fetal outcome for NCC patients was not different from those women without NCC.