1989 Volume 7 Issue 1 Pages 96-105
We report seven cases of intractable childhood epilepsy with generalized tonic-clonic seizure.
The following six are the clinical characteristics of the seven cases described in this report:
(1) A child who did not have any presumed disorders, and was generally under normal development.
(2) Develops initial seizures before the age of one year.
(3)The seizure type during the initial stage in infancy would mainly be either unilateral, or generalized clonic seizure, or generalized tonic-clonic seizure. When the childhood is reached, the generalized tonic-clonic seizures are repeated and later, they develop remarkable therapy resistance.
(4) During the course of development, there are some cases who also show another seizure type that may possibly be complex partial seizures, but they are short-lived.
(5) It is not distinct at the onset, but as the patient grows older, the mental retardation becomes clearer gradually.
(6) The EEGs initially lack epileptic discharges, and later they will show generalized spike-and-wave, or generalized polyspike-and-wave complexes. However, the rate of occurrence of those is relatively low despite the frequent occurrence of the clinical seizures.
The epilepsy thus categorized cannot be regarded as an epileptic syndrome, but since it is intractable, further study is necessary for disclosing its cause and, therefore treatment.
