Postoperative epileptic seizures after brain tumor surgery

Background We sought to examine the incidence of postoperative epileptic seizures, particularly nonconvulsive status epilepticus (NCSE), in brain tumor patients after craniotomy surgery. Methods This was a retrospective, single-center study of 388 patients who underwent brain tumor surgery via craniotomy at our hospital from January 2015 to August 2017. We used medical charts to retrospectively select patients with postoperative epileptic seizures (ES) and examined the incidence of postoperative ES, generalized convulsive status epilepticus (GCSE), and NCSE. Results Nineteen patients (4.9%) were diagnosed as having postoperative ES. The number of patients who had NCSE (14 cases) was larger than the number of those who had GCSE (3 cases) or focal aware seizures (2 cases). In most of the 19 seizure cases, the tumors were located in the intraparenchymal area (17 cases) or the frontal lobe (13 cases). Conclusions Postoperative ES was diagnosed in 4.9% of patients after brain tumor surgery, and NCSE constituted the overwhelming majority of postoperative ES.