Sudden and unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) has become a major issue for patients with epilepsy and their physicians. SUDEP is a nontraumatic and non-drowning death in patients with epilepsy, unrelated to a documented status epilepticus, in which postmortem examination does not reveal a toxicologic or anatomic cause of death. It primarily affects young adults with drug-resistant epilepsy, with an incidence of about 0.5%/year. A recent study reported that up to 20% of patients with childhood onset drug resistant epilepsy will die of a SUDEP by the age of 45. Apart from optimizing antiepileptic drugs, no preventive treatment is available to prevent SUDEP. As underscored by the World Health Organization (WHO), there is an urgent need to develop specific therapeutic approaches to tackle this issue. The primary objective of the proposal is to evaluate the diagnostic value of a set of circulating microRNAs pre-selected because of their implication in the regulation of molecular pathways involved in the respiratory regulation to identify patients with seizure-related respiratory dysfunction, as defined by occurrence ictal/peri-ictal pulse oxymetry \< 90%. A total of 50 patients will be included over a period of one year. Patients undergoing long-term video-EEG/SEEG monitoring will be recruited in the epilepsy monitoring unit of the Department of Functional Neurology and Epileptology, Hospices Civils de Lyon, Lyon, France. It will be a case-control study in a cohort of patients with drug-resistant focal epilepsy undergoing long-term video-EEG monitoring, in which patients who demonstrate ictal/post-ictal hypoxemia (cases) will be compared with those without seizure-related respiratory dysfunction (controls).
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Relation between the expression level of circulating microRNAs and the occurrence of SpO2 <90% during at least 5 seconds within the course of the seizure and/or within the five minutes following the end of the seizure
Timeframe: Day 0