Abstract
West syndrome is often incurable and mental conditions of most of the patients are severely impaired. Thus early diagnosis and treatment are important.
We report a case in which a large quantity of vitamin B6 was dramatically effective. The patient was a 5-month-old girl. From July 19, 1986, she started a series of seizures once a day consisting of about 10 spasms, each of which was about 10 seconds' duration and about 10 seconds apart. Her seizures were characterized by sudden foward bending of her head and her arms being flexed and stiff. On July 29 she visited our hospital for the first time, at which time her electroencephalogram (EEG) showed hypsarhythmia. Oral administration of 200 miligrams of activated vitamin B6 per day was started. Next day seizures disappeared. Her EEG which was taken 4 days later showed no epileptic wave. Thereafter she has been showing normal development without further episodes of seizure on vitamin B6 treatment alone.
