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Risk of epilepsy and autism in full and half siblingsA population-based cohort study
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Risk of epilepsy and autism in full and half siblingsA population-based cohort study

Jakob Christensen, Morten Overgaard, Erik T. Parner, Mogens Vestergaard and Diana Schendel
Epilepsia (Copenhagen), v 57(12), pp 2011-2018
01 Dec 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/epi.13595
PMID: 27861783
Featured in Collection :   UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
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https://doi.org/10.1111/epi.13595View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Clinical Neurology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Neurosciences & Neurology Science & Technology
ObjectiveEpilepsy and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often occur together in the same individual. However, it remains unknown whether siblings of children with ASD have an increased risk of epilepsy and vice versa. This study determines the risk of ASD and epilepsy among younger siblings of children with ASD and epilepsy. DesignThe study included all children born in Denmark between January 1, 1980 and 31 December 2006 who participated in follow-up until December 31, 2012 (1,663,302 children). We used Cox regression to calculate the adjusted hazard ratio (aHR) and the Kaplan-Meier method to calculate the cumulative incidence. ResultsThe overall aHR of epilepsy in younger siblings increased by 70% (aHR 1.70, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.34-2.16%) if the older sibling had ASD compared with siblings where the older sibling did not have ASD. The cumulative incidence of epilepsy at 20 years of age was 2.54% (95% CI 1.97-3.26%) if the older sibling had ASD, whereas the cumulative incidence of epilepsy at 20 years of age was 1.63% (95% CI 1.60-1.66%) if the older sibling did not have ASD. The overall aHR of ASD in younger siblings increased by 54% if the older sibling had epilepsy (aHR 1.54, 95% CI 1.32-1.80) compared with siblings where the older sibling did not have epilepsy. The cumulative incidence of ASD at 20 years of age was 2.06% (95% CI 1.84-2.32%) if the older sibling had epilepsy, whereas the cumulative incidence of ASD at 20 years of age was 1.27% (95% CI 1.25-1.29%) if the older sibling did not have epilepsy. SignificanceThe cross-disorder sibling risk of epilepsy and ASD was increased for the two disorders, which suggests that genes or environmental factors shared by family members may play a causal role in the co-occurrence of ASD and epilepsy.

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22 citations in Web of Science
20 citations in Scopus

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UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:

#3 Good Health and Well-Being

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Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Clinical Neurology
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