Table 1.
Univariable comparisons of baseline characteristics between men and women with status epilepticus (n = 762)
| Baseline characteristics | Women (n = 350) |
Men (n = 412) |
|||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Demographics and clinical characteristics | n/median | %/IQR | n/median | %/IQR | p value |
| Age (years; median, IQR) | 70 | 56–81 | 66 | 53–76 | 0.003 |
| Out-of-hospital SE (i.e., admitted for SE; n, %) | 292 | 83.4 | 355 | 86.2 | 0.293 |
| Admitted via other hospital (n, %) | 63 | 18 | 60 | 14.6 | 0.199 |
| SE etiology (n, %) | |||||
| Presumed fatal etiology (not mutually exclusive) | 92 | 26.3 | 107 | 26.0 | 0.921 |
| Fast growing brain tumors | 50 | 14.3 | 60 | 14.6 | 0.914 |
| Acute intracranial hemorrhage | 31 | 8.9 | 63 | 15.3 | 0.007 |
| Infectious (meningo-)encephalitis | 15 | 4.3 | 16 | 3.9 | 0.855 |
| Acute ischemic stroke | 11 | 3.1 | 10 | 2.4 | 0.658 |
| Acute severe traumatic brain injury | 7 | 2.0 | 23 | 5.6 | 0.014 |
| Acute autoimmune encephalitis* | 13 | 3.7 | 9 | 2.2 | 0.278 |
| Presumed non-fatal etiology** | 258 | 73.7 | 305 | 74.0 | 0.921 |
| Known epilepsy | 115 | 32.9 | 150 | 36.4 | 0.305 |
| Unknown etiology | 37 | 10.6 | 29 | 7.0 | 0.084 |
| Consciousness at SE onset | |||||
| GCS at SE onset (median, IQR) | 9 | 5–13 | 8 | 4–12 | 0.073 |
| Coma at SE onset (n, %) | 127 | 36.3 | 174 | 42.2 | 0.094 |
| SE type (n, %) | |||||
| Focal NCSE without coma | 122 | 34.9 | 105 | 25.5 | 0.005 |
| With altered consciousness | 93 | 26.6 | 75 | 18.2 | 0.005 |
| Without altered consciousness | 29 | 8.3 | 30 | 7.3 | 0.005 |
| SE with motor symptoms (convulsive or myoclonic) | 183 | 52.3 | 262 | 63.6 | 0.002 |
| Convulsive SE | 121 | 34.6 | 188 | 45.6 | 0.002 |
| Myoclonic SE | 62 | 17.7 | 74 | 18.0 | 0.929 |
| NCSE with coma | 45 | 12.9 | 45 | 10.9 | 0.410 |
| NCSE with coma (non-subtle) | 32 | 9.1 | 26 | 6.3 | 0.117 |
| Subtle SE | 13 | 3.7 | 19 | 4.6 | 0.538 |
| Illness severity (median, IQR) | |||||
| STESS | 3 | 2–4 | 3 | 2–4 | 0.834 |
| Charlson Comorbidity Index | 4 | 2–6 | 4 | 2–6 | 0.250 |
| SAPS II*** | 45 | 35–56 | 45 | 34–57 | 0.722 |
IQR = interquartile range; GCS = Glasgow Coma Score (range 3–15); SE = status epilepticus; NCSE = nonconvulsive status epilepticus; STESS = Status Epilepticus Severity Score (range 0–6)[16, 17]; Charlson Comorbidity Index (range 0–37)[18]; SAPS II = Simplified Acute Physiology Score II (range 0–163)[19]
*Acute autoimmune encephalitis was defined as the presence of antigen-specific antibodies in the serum and/or cerebrospinal fluid, or cases exhibiting a clinically recognized autoimmune syndrome with supportive histopathologic evidence determined during the diagnostic workup for SE
**Non-fatal etiology of SE encompassed (not mutually exclusive) known epilepsy (n = 265), old remote ischemic or hemorrhagic strokes (n = 127), old remote or mild to moderate traumatic brain injury (n = 18), slowly growing brain tumors (n = 31), intoxications (n = 18), drug withdrawal (n = 75), drug side effects (n = 6), leukoencephalopathy (n = 23), brain surgery (n = 9), acute but small strokes (n = 3),
***available only in patients treated on the ICUs
Bold font indicates statistical significance after Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons (set at a level of p ≤ 0.01)