1. Diagnostic evaluation of patients with epileptic spasms in the era of next-generation sequencing.
- Author
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Mir A, AlQahtani M, Amer F, AlBaradie R, AlOtaibi W, AlGhamdi F, Khallaf H, Bashir S, Costain G, Aljouda L, and Housawi Y
- Subjects
- Humans, Retrospective Studies, Male, Female, Child, Preschool, Child, Infant, Spasms, Infantile genetics, Spasms, Infantile diagnosis, Spasms, Infantile physiopathology, Adolescent, Exome Sequencing, Adult, Young Adult, Karyotyping, High-Throughput Nucleotide Sequencing, Genetic Testing methods
- Abstract
Objective: Epileptic spasms (ES) can be caused by a variety of etiologies. However, in almost half of cases, the etiology is unidentified. With the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS), the recognition of genetic etiologies has increased., Methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients with ES who were evaluated in the comprehensive epilepsy program at King Fahad Specialist Hospital Dammam between 2009 and 2022., Results: Our data show that in 57.7% of patients with ES, the etiology was unidentified after a standard clinical evaluation and neuroimaging. Of these patients, n = 25 (35.2%) received a genetic diagnosis after some form of genetic testing, and 3.1% of patients from specialized metabolic work indicated the need for genetic testing to confirm the diagnosis. Karyotyping led to a diagnosis in 3.6% of patients, and chromosomal microarray led to a diagnosis in 7.1%. An NGS epilepsy gene panel (EP) was done for 45 patients, leading to a diagnosis in 24.4% (n = 11). Exome sequencing was done for 27 patients, including n = 14 with non-diagnostic panel testing; it led to a diagnosis in 37.3% (n = 10). Exome sequencing led to a diagnosis in 61.5% of patients without a previous panel test and in only two patients who had previously had a negative panel testing., Significance: In this article, we present the diagnostic evaluations of ES for a cohort of 123 patients and discuss the yield and priority of NGS for evaluating ES. Our findings suggest that exome sequencing has a higher diagnostic yield for determining the etiology of ES in patients for whom the etiology is still unclear after an appropriate clinical assessment and a brain MRI., (© 2024 International League Against Epilepsy.)
- Published
- 2024
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