Partial epilepsy in childhood: clinical and EEG study of 261 cases.

A prospective clinical and EEG study is presented based on 261 children affected by partial seizures with or without focal EEG abnormalities, or by generalized seizures with focal EEG disturbances. From the clinical point of view, the partial seizures were most frequently elementary and motor, quite often associated with generalized seizures (64.36%), appearing in the majority of the cases during the first year of life, with rare frequency (less than 1 seizure/6 months). Perinatal disturbances appear to be the most important etiological factor. Partial epilepsy is often included within a previous neurological syndrome (secondary epilepsy). The clinical outcome is most frequently favorable (71.72%) with therapeutic treatment, especially with respect to the cases of primary epilepsy, characterized by rare seizures, which appear after the first year of life. From the EEG point of view, we noted specific monofocal abnormalities (72.79%), most frequently with temporal and rolandic localisation; during the follow-up the EEG abnormalities presented modifications in 58.89% of the cases, with normalisation in 22.98%.