Supplementary oxygen during seizures – Version 10.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Evaluation of supplementary oxygen administration during seizures: A feasibility study of patient recruitment, data quality and oxygen desaturation prevalence.
IRAS ID
245649
Contact name
Valia Rodriguez
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Aston University
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 6 months, 1 days
Research summary
Respiratory-related changes, such as apnea (pause in breathing) and desaturation (drop in blood oxygen levels), can occur during seizures and can pose serious risks of issues like cardiac arrest. Emergency management is required for seizures and multiple guidelines recommend the administration of supplementary oxygen as part of this. The British Thoracic Society and Joint Royal College Ambulance Committee recommend administering oxygen to achieve a saturation level of 94-98%, for seizures. The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence recommends it should be given within the first 10 minutes, if convulsive status epilepticus is suspected.
Although oxygen administration is recommended, the clinical value is uncertain especially regarding whether it is specifically beneficial for seizures; there is a lack of evidence showing that it improves outcomes or what dose of oxygen should be administered. Its use could be argued to be historical, with evidence based on other clinical settings. This uncertainty highlights the need for further research to investigate its clinical utility specifically for seizures. As this has not been directly investigated before, a feasibility study is important to carry out to assess whether a larger future trial is feasible to perform to investigate this.An Epilepsy Monitoring Unit (EMU) provides a relevant patient group to investigate this due to the high likelihood of seizure presentation, where feasibility can be investigated using data acquired from seizures. The EMU of the Sheffield NHS Trust will be the setting for this research; patients are referred here to assist in a diagnosis of epilepsy or for pre-surgical evaluation.
The feasibility study will look at patient recruitment, whether the clinical data collected is of good enough quality (e.g. with minimal artefact) for research purposes, and how often patient’s may present with oxygen desaturation during seizures. This information will help to plan and justify a future trial.
REC name
North East - York Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
18/NE/0306
Date of REC Opinion
19 Sep 2018
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion