Background

The aim of this study is to determine the usefulness of Orexin-A levels in differentiating between epileptic seizures and psychogenic non-epileptic seizures in patients presenting to the emergency service with epileptic seizure-type symptoms.

Methods

A total of 80 individuals were included in this study, including 59 who presented to the emergency service within the first four hours of having been diagnosed with generalized tonic-clonic seizures (39 with epileptic seizures (ES) and 20 with pseudoseizures (PNES) and 21 controls. Orexin-A levels were measured in venous blood samples.

Results

The mean Orexin-A levels were 5.16 ng/ml in the control group, 7.17 ng/ml in the PNES group, and 11.08 ng/ml in the ES group (Table 1). The mean Orexin-A level of the ES group was significantly different from both the control group and the PNES group (Table 1, p < 0.001); the difference between the control group and the PNES group was not significant (p > 0.05).

Conclusions

Results of this study suggest that blood Orexin-A may be an effective biomarker in the differential diagnosis of epileptic seizures/psychogenic non-epileptic seizures in patients presenting to the emergency service with an epileptic seizure-type clinical picture.

中文翻译：

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Orexin-A水平在癫痫发作中的作用。

背景

这项研究的目的是确定Orexin-A水平在区分出现癫痫发作型症状的急诊患者的癫痫发作和心理性非癫痫发作之间的作用。

方法

本研究共纳入80个人，其中59人在被诊断出患有全身性强直阵挛性癫痫发作（癫痫发作（ES）为39例，假性癫痫发作（PNES）为20例， 21个对照组在静脉血样本中测量了Orexin-A水平。

结果

对照组的平均Orexin-A水平为5.16 ng / ml，PNES组为7.17 ng / ml，ES组为11.08 ng / ml（表1）。ES组的平均Orexin-A水平与对照组和PNES组均显着不同（表1，p <0.001）；对照组与PNES组之间的差异不显着（p> 0.05）。

结论

这项研究的结果表明，血液Orexin-A可能是鉴别诊断为癫痫发作型临床表现的急诊患者的癫痫发作/精神性非癫痫发作的有效生物标志物。