1 Dept of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore, MD 21201-1595
To the Editor.
The study by Scher et al in the January issue of Pediatrics1 on electrographic neonatal seizures is an important addition to the neonatal seizure database. However, there are some aspects of the study that I find problematic. First, the study calculates the incidence (prevalence) of electrographic seizures for that patient population without providing details about which patients were included and excluded. Did any newborns who were suspected of having seizures not have electroencephalograms (EEGs)? Were any newborns suspected of having seizures treated with anticonvulsants before the EEG was performed? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, the reported incidence may not be accurate.