Status epilepticus (SE) is a life-threatening emergency in which continuous or recurrent seizures, lasting more than 30 minutes without full recovery of consciousness between seizures occur. Seizures activity lasts more than 60 minutes and fails to respond to appropriate first-line drug treatment in refractory SE. SE is divided into convulsive and non-convulsive. It may occur in the patients with epilepsy (with low antiepileptic drug serum level), or it may be a symptom of acute (organic or metabolic) lesion of CNS. Management in SE should provide: regular functioning of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems, suppressing seizure activity, compensating metabolic disturbance and then diagnosis and casual treatment. The benzodiazepines followed by phenytoin are the first-line drug. Next, other drugs and finally general anesthesia with using barbiturate or unbarbiturate anesthetic agents. EEG performs an important part in diagnosis and monitoring of SE, especially in refractory SE, where medications are administered to achieve a burst suppression pattern on EEG. Every epileptic seizure, lasting more than 10 minutes, should be considered as a potential status epilepticus.

status epilepticus, refractory status epilepticus, benzodiazepines, general anesthesia, EEG