Lactic Acidosis During and After Seizures

Stanford University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Epilepsy

Study type: Observational

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01833247

Stanford Epilepsy IRB 21989

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project looks at the time course of lactic acid rise (if any) after seizures. Salivary and capillary lactic acid are tested. This type of measurement may be useful in signalling the occurrence or recent history of a seizure.

Full description

Lactic acid is released from cells during seizures and elevates lactic acid levels in blood and saliva. The time course of this rise is unknown. If lactic acid rises within a few minutes of a seizure, than it might be feasible to develop lactic acid sensors to provide notification of a recent seizure. This could lead to better safety monitoring for people with epilepsy. This study was designed to utilize a commercially available lactic acid sensor (investigators have no connection with the sensor manufacturer and purchased the device at list price) to measure salivary lactic acid levels after a seizure during inpatient video-EEG epilepsy monitoring.

Enrollment: 12 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 75 years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

1. Age 18-75 inclusive.

2. History of at least one generalized tonic-clonic (grand mal) seizure prior to enrollment in the study.

3. Undergoing monitoring in the Stanford Epilepsy Monitoring Unit.

   Exclusion Criteria:

4. Not pregnant.

5. Inability to understand and sign the consent form.

6. No known history of mitochondrial disease or other metabolic disorders expected to affect blood lactate.

7. No known history of thrombophlebitis or excessive tendency to bleeding. Not on coumadin. Aspirin or anti-platelet agents are not an exclusion.

8. No known peripheral vascular disease affecting blood circulation to the fingers.

9. No painful peripheral neuropathy.

10. No Raynaud's disease or phenomenon.

Trial design

12 participants in 1 patient group

Epilepsy inpatients

Description:

Patients with epilepsy recorded in an inpatient video-EEG monitoring unit after a seizure.