Objective: identify the epidemiological profile of patients with refractory epilepsy as
well as the predictors associated with this outcome. Methods: This case-control study searched
the medical records of 83 epileptic patients following-up on Ophir Loyola Hospital, from May
2015 to March 2019. Qualitative variables were analyzed by Chi-squared test, meanwhile the
quantitative variables were evaluated by the Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal-Wallis post hoc
Dunn test. Results: 55 patients had refractory epilepsy (66,2%) and 28 had well-controlled
epilepsy (33,8%). The refractory group profile was composed predominantly by women
(52,7%), from Belém (49,1%), with completed or uncompleted high school (32,7%), focal
seizures (56,3%), more than 15 seizures in the first year of illness (47,3%) and without
abnormalities in the last EEG (70,9%). The majority had an unknown cause for epilepsy
(43,9%), but within the known causes there was a dominance of hippocampal sclerosis (20%).
The means of age, treatment time latency, disease progression time, treatment time and seizures
onset age were respectively: 34,1; 6,4; 19,5 and 15,1 years. The statistically significant
predictors were: prolonged disease progression time, more than 15 seizures in the first year of
illness, hippocampal sclerosis findings and provenance from Marajó. Conclusion: this analysis
identified a patient’s profile in higher risk of developing refractory epilepsy, allowing earlier
referral to specialists, as well as the application of prophylactic and alternative treatment
methods.
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