ABSTRACT
This study was conducted on 39 children with intractable epilepsy. All were subjected to thorough clinical examination, EEG, MRI and interictal brain SPECT. Ictal SPECT was performed only in 13 patients. The patients were divided according to the clinical semiology of seizures into group A with generalized intractable epilepsy and group B with partial intractable epilepsy. For the whole group, the diagnostic and localizing values were 76.9% and 30.7% for EEG, 56.4% and 46.2% for MRI as well as 69.2% and 43.6% for interictal SPECT. The localizing value was higher for group B in all diagnostic modalities [75% for both MRI and interictal SPECT]. Ictal SPECT was performed for 13 patients only, it had the highest diagnostic and localizing values. It was diagnostic and localizing in seven patients in group B who performed ictal SPECT