Abstract
Background
Currently, statins are widely used for secondary prevention of stroke due to their pleiotropic neuroprotective effects. Epilepsy is a common complication of cerebrovascular diseases. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of statin therapy on the occurrence of post-stroke epilepsy (PSE).
Methods
In this prospective cohort study, patients who suffered an ischemic stroke and without history of epilepsy before stroke were enrolled. At baseline, patients were classified according to the particularities of statin therapy. Statin use onset and adherence to treatment were registered as well. After a follow-up period of 1 year, we assessed the occurrence of seizures and PSE.
Results
Among the 477 patients included in our cohort, there were 91 (19.1%) patients without statins, 160 (33.5%) with simvastatin 20 mg, 180 (37.7%) with simvastatin 40 mg, and 46 (9.6%) with high-potency statins. Overall, PSE emerged in 53 (11.1%) patients. PSE was significantly more prevalent among those who did not receive statins and those with lower doses of simvastatin. Acute onset of statin use was associated with reduced odds of having PSE.
Conclusion
Adequate treatment with statins after stroke may lower the risk of PSE.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lossius MI, Rønning OM, Slapø GD, Mowinckel P, Gjerstad L (2005) Poststroke epilepsy: occurrence and predictors - a long-term prospective controlled study (Akershus Stroke Study). Epilepsia. 46(8):1246–1251. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1528-1167.2005.57904.x
Jungehulsing GJ, Heuschmann PU, Holtkamp M, Schwab S, Kolominsky-Rabas PL (2013) Incidence and predictors of post-stroke epilepsy. Acta Neurol Scand 127(6):427–430. https://doi.org/10.1111/ane.12070
Arntz RM, Maaijwee NAM, Rutten-Jacobs LCA et al (2013) Epilepsy after TIA or stroke in young patients impairs long-term functional outcome the future study. Neurology. 81(22):1907–1913. https://doi.org/10.1212/01.wnl.0000436619.25532.f3
Arntz RM, Rutten-Jacobs LCA, Maaijwee NAM et al (2015) Poststroke epilepsy is associated with a high mortality after a stroke at young age: follow-up of transient ischemic attack and stroke patients and unelucidated risk factor evaluation study. Stroke. 46(8):2309–2311. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.115.010115
Winter Y, Daneshkhah N, Galland N, Kotulla I, Krüger A, Groppa S (2018) Health-related quality of life in patients with poststroke epilepsy. Epilepsy Behav 80:303–306. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2017.12.037
Castilla-Guerra L, MDC F-M, Leon-Jimenez D, Rico-Corral MA (2019) Statins in ischemic stroke prevention: what have we learned in the post-SPARCL (The Stroke Prevention by Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels) decade? Curr Treat Options Neurol 21(5):22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11940-019-0563-4
Squizzato A, Romualdi E, Dentali F, Ageno W (2012) Statins for acute ischemic stroke. Stroke. 43:e18–e19. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.111.638940
Adams HP, Bendixen BH, Kappelle LJ et al (2011) Classification of subtype of acute ischemic stroke. Definitions for use in a multicenter clinical trial. TOAST. Trial of Org 10172 in Acute Stroke Treatment. Stroke. 24(1):35–41. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.str.24.1.35
Beghi E, D’Alessandro R, Beretta S et al (2011) Incidence and predictors of acute symptomatic seizures after stroke. Neurology. 77:1785–1793
Kusznir Vitturi B, José GR (2019) Use of CHADS2 and CHA2DS2-VASc scores to predict prognosis after stroke. Rev Neurol (Paris) (19):30469–30462. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neurol.2019.05.001
Stefanidou M, Das RR, Beiser AS, Sundar B, Kelly-Hayes M, Kase CS, Devinsky O, Seshadri S, Friedman D (2017) Incidence of seizures following initial ischemic stroke in a community-based cohort: the Framingham Heart Study. Seizure. 47:105–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seizure.2017.03.009
Bentes C, Martins H, Peralta AR et al (2017) Post-stroke seizures are clinically underestimated. J Neurol 264(9):1978–1985. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00415-017-8586-9
Holtkamp M, Beghi E, Benninger F, Kälviäinen R, Rocamora R, Christensen H (2017) European Stroke Organisation guidelines for the management of post-stroke seizures and epilepsy. Eur Stroke J 2(2):103–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/2396987317705536
Ferro JM, Pinto F (2004) Poststroke epilepsy: epidemiology, pathophysiology and management. Drugs Aging 21(10):639–653. https://doi.org/10.2165/00002512-200421100-00003
Camilo O, Goldstein LB (2004) Seizures and epilepsy after ischemic stroke. Stroke. 35(7):1769–1775. https://doi.org/10.1161/01.STR.0000130989.17100.96
Silverman IE, Restrepo L, Mathews GC (2002) Poststroke seizures. Arch Neurol 59(2):195–201. https://doi.org/10.1001/archneur.59.2.195
Myint PK, Staufenberg EFA, Sabanathan K (2006) Post-stroke seizure and post-stroke epilepsy. Postgrad Med J 82(971):568–572. https://doi.org/10.1136/pgmj.2005.041426
Sarecka-Hujar B, Kopyta I (2019) Poststroke epilepsy: current perspectives on diagnosis and treatment. Neuropsychiatr Dis Treat 15:95–103. https://doi.org/10.2147/NDT.S169579
Pitkänen A, Roivainen R, Lukasiuk K (2016) Development of epilepsy after ischaemic stroke. Lancet Neurol 15(2):185–197. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(15)00248-3
Rumbach L, Sablot D, Berger E, Tatu L, Vuillier F, Moulin T (2012) Status epilepticus in stroke: report on a hospital-based stroke cohort. Neurology. 54(2):350–354. https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.54.2.350
Lin HW, Ho YF, Lin FJ (2018) Statin use associated with lower risk of epilepsy after intracranial haemorrhage: a population-based cohort study. Br J Clin Pharmacol 84(9):1970–1979. https://doi.org/10.1111/bcp.13626
Guo J, Guo J, Li J, Zhou M, Qin F, Zhang S, Wu B, He L, Zhou D (2015) Statin treatment reduces the risk of poststroke seizures. Neurology. 85(8):701–707. https://doi.org/10.1212/wnl.0000000000001814
Pande SD, Lwin MT, Kyaw KM, Khine AA, Thant AA, Win MM, Morris J (2018) Post-stroke seizure—do the locations, types and managements of stroke matter? Epilepsia Open 3(3):392–398. https://doi.org/10.1002/epi4.12249
Tramacere I, Boncoraglio GB, Banzi R, del Giovane C, Kwag KH, Squizzato A, Moja L (2019) Comparison of statins for secondary prevention in patients with ischemic stroke or transient ischemic attack: a systematic review and network meta-analysis. BMC Med 17(1):67. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12916-019-1298-5doi:10.1186/s12916-019-1298-5
Prinz V, Endres M (2011) Statins and stroke: prevention and beyond. Curr Opin Neurol 24(1):75–80. https://doi.org/10.1097/WCO.0b013e3283424c53
de Oliveira CV, Grigoletto J, Canzian JM et al (2018) Effect of atorvastatin on behavioral alterations and neuroinflammation during epileptogenesis. Epilepsy Behav 78:109–117. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2017.10.021
Sehar N, Agarwal NB, Vohora D, Raisuddin S (2015) Atorvastatin prevents development of kindling by modulating hippocampal levels of dopamine, glutamate, and GABA in mice. Epilepsy Behav 42:48–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2014.11.011
Xie C, Sun J, Qiao W, Lu D, Wei L, Na M, Song Y, Hou X, Lin Z (2011) Administration of simvastatin after kainic acid-induced status epilepticus restrains chronic temporal lobe epilepsy. PLoS One 6(9):e24966. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024966
Sierra S, Ramos MC, Molina P, Esteo C, Vázquez JA, Burgos JS (2011) Statins as neuroprotectants: a comparative in vitro study of lipophilicity, blood-brain-barrier penetration, lowering of brain cholesterol, and decrease of neuron cell death. J Alzheimers Dis 23(2):307–318. https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-2010-101179
De Simoni MG, Perego C, Ravizza T et al (2000) Inflammatory cytokines and related genes are induced in the rat hippocampus by limbic status epilepticus. Eur J Neurosci 12(7):2623–2633. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1460-9568.2000.00140.x
Vivanco-Hidalgo RM, Elosua R, Gómez González A et al (2017) People with epilepsy receive more statins than the general population but have no higher cardiovascular risk: results from a cross-sectional study. Eur J Neurol 24(2):419–426. https://doi.org/10.1111/ene.13222
Ní Chróinín D, Asplund K, Åsberg S, Callaly E, Cuadrado-Godia E, Díez-Tejedor E, di Napoli M, Engelter ST, Furie KL, Giannopoulos S, Gotto AM Jr, Hannon N, Jonsson F, Kapral MK, Martí-Fàbregas J, Martínez-Sánchez P, Milionis HJ, Montaner J, Muscari A, Pikija S, Probstfield J, Rost NS, Thrift AG, Vemmos K, Kelly PJ (2013) Statin therapy and outcome after ischemic stroke: systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies and randomized trials. Stroke. 44(2):448–456. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.112.668277
Chróinín DN, Callaly EL, Duggan J et al (2011) Association between acute statin therapy, survival, and improved functional outcome after ischemic stroke: the North Dublin population stroke study. Stroke 42(4):1021–1029. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.110.596734
Kusznir Vitturi B, Barreto Cabral F, Mella CC (2019) Outcomes of pregnant women with refractory epilepsy. Seizure. 69:251–257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.seizure.2019.05.009
Colivicchi F, Bassi A, Santini M, Caltagirone C (2007) Discontinuation of statin therapy and clinical outcome after ischemic stroke. Stroke. 38(10):2652–2657. https://doi.org/10.1161/STROKEAHA.107.487017
Kusznir Vitturi B, José GR (2019) The role of statins in cardioembolic stroke. J Clin Neurosci (19):31774–31776. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jocn.2019.12.028
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest..
Ethical approval
All participants provided written informed consent before inclusion and the research protocol was approved by our local ethics committee.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vitturi, B.K., Gagliardi, R.J. The influence of statins on the risk of post-stroke epilepsy. Neurol Sci 41, 1851–1857 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-020-04298-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10072-020-04298-5