To study the incidence of acute seizures in ischemic stroke patients treated with mechanical retrieval therapy at our comprehensive stroke center.

Recently published studies have reported early onset seizure incidence 3.9% and higher in patients post stroke. Some studies have reported this rate is as high as 12.9% in patients treated with post stroke therapy (IA, IAT, MER or a combination.) Due to the rapid advances in stroke treatment, our center has had an increasing numbers of patients who were treated with mechanical retrieval therapy. We aim to assess the incidence of early-onset post-stroke seizure in our patient population treated with mechanical retrieval therapy.

We retrospectively reviewed 1226 stroke patients from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2017. Of these, 232 patients were treated with mechanical retrieval therapy at our hospital. Demographics, onset of the seizure, and time to mechanical retrieval therapy treatment were recorded. Patients who had seizures before stroke were excluded.

Of the 1226 patients reviewed, 232 patients were identified to have had mechanical thrombectomy, and 11 (4.5%) patients had post-stroke seizures within one week of a stroke. When compared to the published studies, the overall occurrence of early-onset seizures at our center is lower than the majority of studies reviewed.

Stroke patients who received mechanical retrieval therapy in our center had a low incidence of early-onset post-stroke seizures. Our results are comparable to studies on the low end of seizure occurrence. Further studies would be needed to clarify the effect of mechanical retrieval therapy in the development of post-stroke epilepsy.