Overt neonatal seizures: outcome at one year.

Sixty-five infants with seizures in the neonatal period were followed to the age of one year. There were 27 nonsurvivors, with 14 neonatal deaths from causes directly related to the initial neurologic insult, and 13 postneonatal deaths, eight related to neurologic sequelae and five to unrelated causes. Twenty-four (63.2%) of the survivors were neurologically normal, while five (13.2%) had seizures at age one year. Multivariate stepwise analysis identified low birthweight (p less than 0.01) and the number of anticonvulsants used to control the initial seizure(s) (p less than 0.05) as being significantly associated with nonsurvival and neurodevelopmental sequelae amongst the survivors was significantly associated with the duration of initial seizure (p less than 0.05).