A Case of Atypical Benign Partial Childhood Epilepsy

ABSTRACT

We report a case of atypical benign partial childhood epilepsy in a 11 years old male child whose case has been followed up for 6 years. His first symptom was focal seizure of the left side of his face during a drowsy state, followed by focal seizures of left fingers and legs. At that time he had been on phenobarbital for a year without any response clinically and electroencephalographically, so he was transferred to our hospital. The EEG, which was taken at his first visit, showed continuous generalized spike-wave pattern with high amplitude through the whole record during waking, drowsy and sleeping states. The clinical and EEG findings showed no improvement for the first 2 years even though he was on combination therapy with some drugs such as carbamazepine, valproate and vigabatrin. However, he began to show some improvement after 3 years(at 8 years of age) and no seizure has been observed for the last 2 years. Also an EEG, taken 6 years after onset, showed marked improvement.