Patients with epilepsy experienced twice the risk for COVID-19- related hospital admission compared with a matched control population, according to data from the first 20 months of the COVID-19 pandemic that were published in Epilepsia. Francesca Bisulli, MD, PhD, and colleagues examined the risk for hospitalization and death among 1,576 people with epilepsy and 15,326 controls from March 1, 2020 to October 31, 2021. During the full study period, 49 people with epilepsy (3.1%) and 225 controls (1.5%) were admitted to the hospital with COVID-19, for an adjusted HR in people with epilepsy of 1.9 (95% CI, 1.4-2.7). Patients with focal epilepsy (aHR, 1.9; 95% CI, 1.3-2.8) and developmental and/or epileptic encephalopathy (aHR, 3.9; 95% CI, 1.7-8.7) were at higher risk for COVID-19-related hospital admission, while the risk for patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy was comparable to that of controls (aHR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.3-3.5). While polytherapy with antiseizure medications contributed to an increased risk for hospital admission, epilepsy was not a risk factor for COVID-19-related death.
