CHILDHOOD OCCIPITAL EPILEPSY - SEIZURE MANIFESTATIONS AND ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHIC FEATURES

Childhood epilepsy with occipital paroxysms (CEOP) is an idiopathic lo calization-related epilepsy. A typical seizure in CEOP begins with vis ual symptoms, followed by hemiclonic seizures, complex partial seizure s or generalized tonic-clonic seizures. Benign nocturnal childhood occ ipital epilepsy (BNCOE), characterized by nocturnal seizures with toni c deviation of the eyes followed by vomiting, has the same electroence phalographic features as CEOP. In this study, we report the seizure sy mptoms and electroencephalographic features of 21 cases with CEOP or B NCOE. Out of these patients, nine had BNCOE, six had CEOP, four had CE OP and BNCOE and the remaining two belonged to the incomplete syndrome because of no paroxysmal discharges in EEG. When the patients with BN COE awoke from sleep, they had tonic deviation of the eyes and could d escribe visual symptoms. Patients with CEOP had seizures beginning wit h visual symptoms followed by loss of consciousness but no generalized convulsions. In three cases, in addition to the occipital spikes, ind ependent centrotemporal spikes were recorded and in another three case s generalized spike-wave discharges were recorded. Such a combination suggests the idiopathic nature of these epilepsies. We concluded that in the diagnosis of CEOP and BNCOE, the seizure symptomatology is impo rtant even if the EEG can be considered normal. (C) 1997 Elsevier Scie nce B.V.