In a multivariate analysis adjusted for patient age, gender, and history of prior afebrile seizures, the groups with vaccine-proximate and vaccine-unrelated febrile seizures didn’t differ significantly in terms of the proportion with a hospital length of stay greater than 1 day (20% vs. 15%), ICU admission (1.5% vs. 2.3%), seizure duration of more than 15 minutes (16% vs. 12%), repeat seizures within 24 hours (9% vs. 10%), or discharge on antiepileptic medication (4.4% vs. 4.3%).
In the developmental outcomes analysis, 62 of the children with vaccine-proximate febrile seizures, 70 with vaccine-unrelated febrile seizures, and 85 healthy controls with no seizure history underwent formal assessment using the third edition of the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development 12-24 months after their initial febrile seizure. Scores adjusted for years of maternal education were closely similar in all three groups across all five test domains: cognitive, language, motor, social-emotional, and general-adaptive.
Dr. Deng reported having no financial conflicts of interest regarding the study, which was partially funded by the Australian National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance.