Cardiovascular Disease Burden, Mortality, and Sudden Death Risk in Epilepsy: A UK Biobank Study

Abstract

Background

Sudden death is the leading cause of mortality in medically refractory epilepsy. Middle-aged persons with epilepsy (PWE) are under investigated regarding their mortality risk and burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Methods

Using UK Biobank, we identified 7,786 (1.6%) participants with a diagnosis of epilepsy and 6,171,803 person-years of follow-up (mean 12.30 years, SD 1.74); 566 individuals with prior history of stroke were excluded. The 7,220 PWE comprised the study cohort with the remaining 494,676 without epilepsy as the comparator group. Prevalence of CVD was determined using validated diagnostic codes. Cox proportional hazards regression were used to assess all-cause mortality and sudden death risk.

Results

Hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease, and congenital heart disease were more prevalent in PWE. Arrhythmias including atrial fibrillation/flutter (12.2% vs 6.9%; p<0.01), bradyarrhythmias (7.7% vs 3.5%; p<0.01), conduction defects (6.1% vs 2.6%; p<0.01), and ventricular arrhythmias (2.3% vs 1.0%; p<0.01), as well as cardiac implantable electric devices (4.6% vs 2.0%; p<0.01) were more prevalent in PWE. PWE had higher adjusted all-cause mortality (HR 3.9 [95% CI, 3.01-3.39]), and sudden death-specific mortality (HR 6.65 [95% CI, 4.53-9.77]); and were almost 2 years younger at death [68.1 vs 69.8; p<0.001].

Conclusions

Middle-aged PWE have increased all-cause and sudden death specific mortality, and higher burden of CVD including arrhythmias and heart failure. Further work is required to elucidate mechanisms underlying all-cause mortality and sudden death risk in PWE of middle age, to identify prognostic biomarkers and develop preventative therapies in PWE.