Is seizure detection based on EKG clinically relevant?

Real-time EKG-based automated seizure detection is emerging as a complement or supplement to that based on cortical signals, but its value is unproven. This study assesses the clinically relevance of EKG-based seizure detection by comparing the information content in EKG and ECoG.

ECoGs (6935h; 241 clinical and 4311 sub-clinical seizures) with simultaneous EKG from 81 subjects undergoing surgical evaluation were used in these analyses. Differences, if any, between clinical and sub-clinical seizures in variables such as intensity, duration and their product severity, were investigated with a multi-variate regression model.

Highly statistically significant differences in severity between clinical and sub-clinical seizures were discerned with EKG and ECoG. Furthermore, EKG-based seizure severity was linearly correlated with that estimated using ECoG.

These findings support the notion that EKG-based seizure detection is clinically relevant in certain localization-related epilepsies, providing similar information to that yielded by neuronal electrical signals.

The information content equivalence between EKG and ECoG would enable automated seizure detection, quantification and therapy delivery, without resorting to cortical monitoring. The considerably higher S/N and ease of acquisition and processing of EKG compared to ECoG/EEG may foster widespread clinical applications of this novel detection approach.