OPEN ACCESS RESEARCH Characteristics of epilepsy patients at a tertiary care hospital in Bangladesh Sharif Uddin Khan 1 , Mansur Habib 1 , Md Azharul Hoque 1 , Md Badrul Alam 2 , A T M Hasibul Hasan 1 , Rajib Nayan Chowdhury 1 , Kazi Mohibur Rahman1 1 , Badrul Haque 1 , Ahmed Hossian Chowdhury 1 , Swapon Kumar Ghose 1 , and Quazi Deen Mohammad 1 1 Dhaka Medical College Hospital, Dhaka, Bangladesh 2 National Institute of Neurology, Dhaka, Bangladesh * corresponding author (parag007us@gmail.com) Abstract Objective: The aim of our study was to determine the types of epilepsies and epileptic syndromes along with their treatment strategies among patients attending the outdoor epilepsy clinic in a ter- tiary care hospital. Methods: We did a retrospective chart review of all 2236 epilepsy patients attending the epilepsy clinic of Dept. of Neurology, Dhaka Medical College Hospital from October 1996 to September 2010. Data were collected through a predesigned questionnaire containing in- formation on age, sex, habitat, clinical features, management, EEG and imaging findings. Result: Most of the patients in our study were in 15-40 year-old group (46%), with a male predominance (59%). Though a large proportion (83%) of patients got prior medical treatment, mainly with phe- nobarbitone (30%), many took indigenous treatment and had superstitious belief regarding epilepsy (35%). About 36% of the patients were found to have abnormal EEG finding while only 12% had abnormal brain imaging. Among them, 46% of the patients who were classified as IGE mostly presented with GTCS (76%). Within the LRE group 63% had secondary generalized seizure. Car- bamazepine (56%), phenobarbitone (35%), sodium valproate (20%) were the commonly prescribed drugs at the epilepsy clinic. Conclusion: Epilepsy is not uncommon in our day to day practice. Most of the patients remained seizure-free with commonly used anti-epileptic drugs. Patients should be adequately advised about the disease and the effect of drug noncompliance. DOI dx.doi.org/10.13070/rs.en.1.741 Date 2014-04-27 Cite as Research 2014;1:741 Introduction Epilepsy is a group of disorders characterized by recurrent episodes of transient neurological and/or psychic dysfunction due to abnormal excessive cere- bral neuronal discharge. The risk of having epilepsy at some point during the average life span of any in- dividual varies between 2%-5% [1]. The exact num- ber of people suffering from epilepsy in South East Asian countries (SEAR) is not known. But as per some hospital and community-based studies the in- cidence of epilepsy varies from 2-10 per thousand population [1]. Though there are no national statis- tics, it is estimated that out of 150 million, there are at least 1.5-2.0 million people with epilepsy in Bangladesh [1]. WHO estimates that 8 people per 1000 population worldwide have this disease [2]. Epilepsy has been recognized since ancient times. But the scientific knowledge about this problem is very recent. Despite the recent economic and tech- nical growth, about half of the 50 million epilepsy patients live in Asia [2]. The International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE) derived a method for clas- sification of epilepsy in 1969, which was modified in RESEARCH — www.labome.org 1 2014-04-27