clinical and brain CT features of old infantile hemiplegia

Forty-eight consecutive patients with childhood hemiplegia were clinically and radiologically evaluated several years after the onset of the hemiplegia. A prior history of an acute febrile illness or convulsive status epilepticus preceding the onset was uncommon [23%]. Epilepsy was the commonest [73%] complication of this syndrome but mental retardation was also uncommon. Eighty per cent of the epileptic patients had their first attack before the age of 10 years. The seizure type was simple partial motor epilepsy with or without secondary generalization in 77%. The CT scan showed contralateral cerebral hemiatrophy in 27 patients [56%]. Ten of these had infarct in the atrophied hemisphere. Overall, cerebral infarction was present in 17 patients [35%]. Five patients had intracranial calcified masses, three of which were most probably granulomata