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Seizures following childhood immunizations
Insights
Seizures following childhood immunizations, like DPT and measles vaccines, are rare and typically benign. Most post-vaccination seizures are brief, fever-associated events, similar to common febrile seizures.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Neurology
- Immunology
- Public Health
Background:
- Seizures can occur in children, with febrile seizures being common.
- The relationship between childhood immunizations and seizure occurrence requires careful evaluation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the incidence and characteristics of seizures following childhood immunizations.
- To assess the clinical presentation and long-term outcomes of post-immunization seizures.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of seizure events within two weeks of immunization in children from the Collaborative Perinatal Project.
- Review of immunization types, seizure characteristics (duration, fever), medical history, and long-term follow-up data.
Main Results:
- 1.4% of children experienced seizures within two weeks of immunization; 40 events in 39 children were documented.
- Diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) and measles immunizations were most frequently associated with seizures.
- Most seizures were brief (<30 minutes), fever-associated, and occurred in children with a history of febrile seizures; no epilepsy developed.
Conclusions:
- Post-immunization seizures are uncommon and generally resemble benign febrile seizures in clinical presentation and outcome.
- The neurologic and cognitive outcomes for children with brief post-immunization seizures were normal at seven years of age.
Abstract:
In 1.4% of children who experienced a seizure during the first seven years of life, the seizure followed within two weeks of an immunization procedure. We report 40 postimmunization seizures in 39 children enrolled in the Collaborative Perinatal Project. Ten seizures followed diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus (DPT) immunization, and 10 followed measles immunization. All but one of the seizures were associated with fever, often high. Thirty-seven seizures lasted less than 30 minutes. More than half of the children had a personal or immediate-family history of febrile seizures. One of the children had a right focal seizure lasting six hours after DPT immunization and had a significant speech deficit on long-term follow-up. No child developed epilepsy, and results in all children with brief seizures were normal on neurologic and cognitive examination at 7 years of age. Both in clinical presentation and generally benign outcome, these immunization-related seizures closely resemble febrile seizures, which are common in early childhood.