Real-world epilepsy monitoring with ultra-long-term subcutaneous electroencephalography: A 15-month prospective study

Novel subcutaneous electroencephalography (sqEEG) systems enable prolonged, near-continuous cerebral monitoring in real-world conditions. Nevertheless, the feasibility, acceptability and overall clinical utility of these systems remain unclear. We report on the longest observational study using ultra-long-term sqEEG to date.

We conducted a 15-month prospective, observational study including 10 adult people with treatment-resistant epilepsy. After device implantation, patients were asked to record sqEEG, to use an electronic seizure diary, and to complete acceptability and usability questionnaires. sqEEG seizures were annotated visually, aided by automated detection. Individualized temporal patterns of seizure occurrence were assessed via circadian circular statistics and via Fano factor analysis.

Over a median duration of 438 days, 10 patients recorded a median 18.8 h/day, totaling 71 984 h of real-world sqEEG data. Adherence and acceptability remained high throughout the study. Although 754 sqEEG seizures were recorded across patients, more than half (52%) of these were not reported in the patient diary. Of the 140 (27%) diary reports not associated with an identifiable sqEEG seizure, the majority (68%) were reported as seizures with preserved awareness. The sqEEG to diary F1 agreement score was highly variable, ranging from .06 to .97. Patient-specific patterns of circadian seizure occurrence and seizure clustering were found, including several relevant discrepancies between sqEEG and diary.

We demonstrate feasibility and high acceptability of ultra-long-term (months-years) sqEEG monitoring. These systems help provide real-world, more objective seizure counting compared to patient diaries. It is possible to objectively monitor individual temporal fluctuations of seizure occurrence.