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Epilepsy prevalence in Al-Manial Island, Egypt. A door-to-door survey
Saher Hashem1, Manal Al-Kattan1, Sahar Y Ibrahim2
1MD Neurology, Cairo University, Cairo, Egypt.
Background:
Epidemiologic studies of epilepsy are lacking from the majority of the Arab countries; although there are significant needs for such studies. This study was conducted on a sample of Al-Manial Island, Cairo city, one of the highest cities in population density in the world.
Participants And Methods:
A community-based, door to door, cross-sectional study using multistage random sample including 512 families (1751 individuals). The study extended from March 2009 to September 2012 and involved three main stages; the preparatory stage, the field work stage and the stage of establishing epilepsy diagnosis and classifying confirmed epileptic patients.
Results:
The lifetime point prevalence of epilepsy among inhabitants of Al-Manial island was 6.9/1000 inhabitants while the prevalence of active epilepsy was 5.1/1000 inhabitants. The age distribution showed bimodal peaks in adolescents and in elderly with equal sex ratio (6/855 vs 6/896). Focal seizures were the commonest type (58.3%) and the treatment gap was 66.7%.
Conclusion:
The prevalence of epilepsy among inhabitants of Al-Manial Island go in agreement with most global studies. High treatment gap detected in our study indicates that proper management of epilepsy requires a multi-factorial approach.
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