assessing electrocardiographic parameters in the patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy: a case-control study

Introduction: sudden, unexpected death in epilepsy (sudep) is a substantial cause of death in patients with epilepsy. although electroconductive disorders leading to life-threatening arrhythmia are supposed to play a crucial role, there is a paucity of knowledge in variables among the patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy (tle) compared to the healthy controls.methods: the current case-control study has been conducted on 50 drug-resistant tle patients as the cases and 50 age- and gender-matched healthy subjects selected from their first-degree family members. electrocardiographic (ecg) were taken from the cases when admitted at the hospital (baseline), immediately after a seizure incidence, and within an hour after the end of the seizure and compared with a random ecg of the controls considering parameters, including pr-, rr-, and corrected qt interval (qtc), p wave duration, and heart rate (hr) variability.results: a shorter corrected qtc interval was notified among the drug-resistant tle patients compared to the controls (p=0.017) in the baseline taken ecgs, while the assessments immediately after the seizure revealed significant differences in terms of rr-interval (p=0.005) and hr (p=0.005). postictal ecgs did not differ between the groups (p>0.05).conclusion: according to the findings of this study, shortened qtc interval at baseline ecgs, shortened rr interval, and increased hr during the seizure were the ecg elements that affected drug-resistant tle patients; however, to generalize the outcomes, further studies are required.