Hsu SPC, et al. - Researchers assessed stroke risk and post-stroke mortality in epileptic patients. They performed two studies. They used database of National Health Insurance in Taiwan in Study I, to perform a retrospective cohort study of 6,746 patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy and 26,984 persons without epilepsy between 2000 and 2008. They also performed a nested cohort study in Study II and examined 484,990 hospitalized patients with newly diagnosed stroke between 2000 and 2009. Stroke patients with previous epilepsy and those without epilepsy were compared with respect to short-term mortality and complications during stroke admission. Overall, increased stroke risk was observed in epileptic patients. Also, history of epilepsy was found to be related to complications, including pneumonia, urinary tract infection, and longer stay during the index stroke admission among hospitalized stroke patients. Findings call for a prevention strategy for stroke in epileptic patients.