Simple febrile seizure and iron deficiency anaemia- is there any association

Background: Febrile seizures occurs mostly in children 14–18 months of age, which overlaps with the maximum prevalence age of iron-deficiency anemia, which is between 1 and 2 years of age. It is well established that iron deficiency may cause some behavioral and developmental problems. The relationship between iron deficiency and febrile seizure is not yet well determined, the present study was conducted to see the association between iron deficiency anaemia and simple febrile seizures. Methods: This prospective case control study was conducted in SMGS Hospital, GMC Jammu from January 2018 to December 2020 after taking approval from institutional ethical committee. Cases included children of age group 6 months to 5 years presenting with simple febrile seizure to the casualty or OPD of this hospital. For each case, a control was selected with similar age group and same sex who came for short duration fever (less than 3 days) but without seizures. deficiency was defined as per WHO criteria After proper consent of parents of the study children, blood samples of the study children were sent for the above mentioned investigations in hospital’s central laboratory. Samples were taken during afebrile period. Results: Total 200 subjects were included in the study, 100 in each group. Iron deficiency anaemia was seen in 46 subjects (46%) in case group and in 13(13%) subjects in control group. The results were statistically significant {p<0.0001, odds ratio (95% CI) 5.70(2.82 TO 11.51)}. Conclusion: Iron deficiency anaemia can be considered as a risk factor for febrile seizures and treatment of iron deficiency anaemia may prevent occurrence of febrile seizures.