STUDY OF SERUM ZINC LEVELS IN CHILDREN WITH FEBRILE SEIZURES

Abstract

Background: Febrile seizures are the most common cause of convulsions in children and a frequent cause of emergency hospital admissions. Trace elements like Zinc are found in small quantities in the body but have important structural functional roles in a variety of biological processes. There are studies identifying the role of hypozincemia in febrile seizures but so far no studies have documented hyperzincemia in febrile seizures. An objective was to study the association between serum zinc levels and febrile seizures in children in our set up. The study was cross Methods: sectional study done in B.Y.L. Nair Hospital, Mumbai, India from January 2017- November 2018 . A total of 147 children aged 6 months to 6 years fullling our inclusion and exclusion criteria were enrolled for the study. Children were classied into 3 groups of 50 each. Out of 3 groups rst group comprised of febrile seizure cases. The other 2 groups were control with rst being the febrile patients without convulsions and the other being children without any history of fever or convulsion. The concentration of serum zinc was measured by colorimetric method using a Fully automated analyser. The three groups included in the study were compared with respect to serum zinc level. All data was analysed with SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and variables were analysed with t-test, chi-square test and ANOVA test. All p-values below 0.05 were considered statistically signicant. Out of 147 children enrolled, majority of t Results: he children in case group were between 6 to 12 months (46.8%). Mean serum zinc level in cases was 112.5 ugm/dl. Serum zinc level was found signicantly high in cases of simple febrile seizures as compared to the controls (P<0.05). Amongst 47 cases 34.04% cases had hyperzincemia and 27.65% cases had hypozincemia. Thus cases with dysregulation in Zinc levels were 61.7%. This study reveals that there is a Conclusion: positive correlation between dysregulation (high as well as low) in serum zinc levels and febrile convulsions