Cognitive Outcome in Young Adults after Resolution of Epilepsy in Childhood

Abstract

Self-limited epilepsies of childhood are common and were considered benign. We aim to determine whether cognitive function in young adults who experienced epilepsy as children and are subsequently seizure-free and unmedicated differ from the general population. We report on a cross-sectional population-based study including 2,124,871 men and women aged 16–19 years. Participants > 5 years following the last seizure and > 2 years without anti-seizure medication (n = 3,452) had an odds ratio (OR) of having low cognitive function of 1.44 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.24–1.68, p < 0.001) using a multinominal regression model. Our results underscore the need to avoid the term “benign” in the classification of childhood epilepsies. ANN NEUROL 2025;98:62–66.