ABSTRACT
Fifty children, 24 female and 26 male, with ages varying from 6 to 72 months (mean=23.7 m.) that experienced at least one febrile seizure (FS) entered a prospective study of intermittent therapy with clobazam. Cases with severe neurological abnormalities, progressive neurological disease, afebrile seizures, sympromatic seizures of other nature, or seizures during a central nervous system infection were excluded. Seizures were of the simple type in 25 patients, complex in 20 and unclassified in 5. The mean follow-up period was 7.9 months (range=1 to 23 m.), and the age at the first seizure varied from 5 to 42 months (mean=16.8 m.). Clobazam was administered orally during the febrile episode according to the child's weight: up to 5 kg, 5 mg/day; from 5 to 10 kg, 10 mg/day; from 11 to 15 kg, 15 mg/day, and over 15 kg, 20 mg/day. There were 219 febrile episodes, with temperature above 37.8 degrees Celsius, in 40 children during the study period. Twelve children never received clobazam and 28 received the drug at least once. Drug efficacy was measured by comparing FS recurrence in the febrile episodes that were treated with clobazam with those in which only antipyretic measures were taken. Ten children (20 percent) experienced a FS during the study period. Of the 171 febrile episodes treated with clobazam there were only 3 recurrences (1.7 percent), while of the 48 episodes treated only with antipyretic measures there were 11 recurrences (22.9 percent), a difference highly significant (p<0.0001). Adverse effects occurred in 10/28 patients (35.7 percent), consisting maily in vomiting, somnolene and hyperactivity. Only one patient had recurrent vomiting which lead to drug interruption. These effects did not necessarily ocurred in every instance the drug was administered, being present in one febrile episode and not in the others. We conclude that clonazepam is safe and efficacious in preventing FS recurrence. It may be an alternative to deazepam in the intermittent treatment of FS recurrence.
Subject(s)
Child , Child, Preschool , Infant , Female , Humans , Anticonvulsants/therapeutic use , Benzodiazepinones/therapeutic use , Seizures, Febrile , Anticonvulsants , Benzodiazepinones , Prospective Studies , RecurrenceABSTRACT
Dezessete crianças com espícula-onda contínua durante o sono foram estudadas retrospectivamente. Cinco apresentavam distúrbio da fala após desenvolvimentos normal da linguagem e crise epilépticas (síndrome de Landau e Kleffner - grupo 1). Doze crianças tinham atraso do desenvolvimento neuropsicomotor e/ou deficiência mental (grupo 2). Crises epilépticas estavam presentes em 11 pacientes deste grupo, tetraparesia em 5, hemiparesia em 2, microcefalia em 2, distúrbios de comportamento em 4 casos. O eletrencefalograma mostrou em todos os casos espícula-onda contínua durante o sono. Pacientes do grupo 1 apresentavam atividade epileptiforme difusa com acentuaçäo das descargas nas regiöes temporais em 4 de 5 casos; e os do grupo 2, descargas difusas, incluindo atividade multifocal (5/12), por vezes com predomínio anterior (7/12). Concluímos que espícula-onda contínua durante o sono é um padräo eletrográfico inespecífico de certos tipos de epilepsia na infância com diferentes manifestaçöes clínicas, que mostra no entanto certa diferenciaçäo topográfica, de acordo com os prováveis sítios lesionais.