Concept and Definition
The diagnosis of epilepsy is primarily clinical; however, routine interictal EEG plays a crucial role in the diagnosis and management of patients with this paroxysmal neurological disorder (Binnie and Stefan 1999; Pillai and Sperling 2006).
Interictal EEG is defined as an electroencephalographic recording that does not contain seizures or ictal manifestations and is therefore obtained in the intervals between clinical attacks. It is the most frequent recording type in the clinical practice.
Utility of the Interictal EEG
Routine EEG is generally performed for detecting interictal epileptiform activity (IEA) such as spikes, polyspikes, sharp waves, spike-and-wave, and sharp-and-slow wave complexes. The presence of IEA in a mental and neurologically normal subject, in an appropriate clinical context, has a high positive predictive value for the diagnosis of epilepsy (Pedley et al. 2003). However, its presence should be considered with precaution in subjects with...
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Abbreviations
- IEA:
-
Interictal epileptiform activity
- IEDs:
-
Interictal epileptiform discharges
- IGEs:
-
Idiopathic generalized epilepsies
- IPS:
-
Intermittent photic stimulation
- OPM:
-
Orbitofrontal photomyoclonus
- PLEDs:
-
Periodic lateralized epileptiform discharges
- SREDA:
-
Subclinical rhythmic electrographic discharges in adults
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Fernández-Torre, J.L. (2010). Interictal EEG. In: Panayiotopoulos, C.P. (eds) Atlas of Epilepsies. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84882-128-6_101
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