OBJECTIVE: To identify the most common etiologies of late-onset epilepsy in our society. METHOD: Retrospective and descriptive study in the CME/SUS of Florianópolis from 1990 to 1998, evaluating 120 handbooks of patients with late-onset epilepsy, that is, those that had initiated epileptic seizures of the 18 years in ahead. The collected variables were: age of the first seizure, etiologies and morbid familial history. RESULTS: The prevalence rate found for late-onset epilepsy was 29.48%. Most of the sample had partial symptomatic epilepsy and the most frequent and important were: cysticercosis with 20%, head trauma with 15%, febrile convulsions in infancy with 5% and 35% were classified as idiopatic. CONCLUSION: Prevalence of late-onset epilepsy in our society is 29.48%, value slightly upper to the told one in developed countries (25%). Very probably, this difference is consequence of the epidemic character of cysticercosis among us. Moreover, head trauma and febrile convulsions are common etiologies. Prophylaxis of epilepsy is viable and urgently necessary in our society.
epilepsy; cysticercosis; febrile convulsion; head trauma
