Background and Aim Seizures in the neonatal period represent a neurological emergency but it is often challenging for the clinican to recognize it with only visual inspection. Our aim is to evaluate the use of amplitude integrated EEG (aEEG) as a prognostic tool in neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) patients with clinical seizures in the two years follow-up.

Method Twenty-four infants with clinical seizures (Group I) and 67 infants with suspected seizure activity (Group II) were included in the study. All infants were monitored with aEEG at least 24 hours after the seizure activity were stopped. aEEG was analysed for background activity, sleep-wake cycle and seizure activity. All infants were followed up in our outpatient clinic had neurologic examination and Bayley II Infant Development Scale were done by the same neuropsychologist on the 6th, 12th, 15th and 18th months of age.

Results Median gestational age of the infants were 36.0 weeks (26^1/7–41^3/7). There was no significant difference between groups regarding to Bayley scores. Mechanical ventilation, sepsis, inotrope use were more in Group I in which there were more critically ill infant. These critically ill infants tend to have lower Bayley scores in Group I. In Group I infants with normal background activity tend to have higher Bayley scores than those of whom had discontinuous, low valtage, burst supression activity.

Conclusion aEEG helps management of infants with seizure activity allowing continuous long-term monitoring of brain functions. Continous background activity seems to be a good predictor of aEEG in infants with neonatal seizure.