Introduction:

status epilepticus is a medical condition which could lead to a great disability and be mortal. Background of epilepsy could prevent a progression to a refractory status epilepticus and predict a good functional prognosis. Nevertheless, in Mexican population there are no studies about that.

Materials and methods:

an observational, analytic, retrospective, cohort study was performed with patients with status epilepticus in Specialities Hospital of “Siglo XXI” National Medical Center, in Mexico. It was evaluated the probability of presenting refractory status epilepticus and a good functional outcome in patients with a background of epilepsy, performing Pearson Chi-square.

Results:

40 patients with status epilepticus were included, 32 with refractory status epilepticus and 14 with a background of epilepsy. The probability of presenting a refractory status epilepticus with a background of epilepsy was OR 1.29 (p 0.53), and for a good functional outcome was OR 3.63 (p 0.10).

Conclusions:

background of epilepsy is not a protective factor for preventing the progression to a refractory status epilepticus, neither a factor for predicting a good functional outcome in our study with Mexican population. Nevertheless, further studies with a bigger sample are needed in order to prove these results.