Electrographic seizures during the early postnatal period in preterm infants

Rhodri O Lloyd, John M O’Toole, Elena Pavlidis, Peter M Filan, Geraldine B Boylan

Objective

To investigate the frequency and characteristics of electrographic seizures in preterm infants in the early postnatal period.

Study design: Infants <32 weeks gestational age (GA) (n = 120) were enrolled for continuous multichannel electroencephalography (EEG) recording initiated as soon as possible after birth and continued for approximately up to 72 hours of age. Electrographic seizures were identified visually, annotated, and analyzed. Quantitative descriptors of the temporal evolution of seizures, including total seizure burden, seizure duration, and maximum seizure burden, were calculated.