CEREBELLAR AND SUBCORTICAL BLOOD-FLOW ABNORMALITIES IN CHILDREN WITH PARTIAL EPILEPSY

Cerebellar and cerebral subcortical blood flow in 41 children with par tial epilepsy and 6 normal controls was investigated during the interi ctal state using single photon emission computed tomography with techn etium-99m hexamethylpropyleneamineoxime. Seventeen of 41 patients had been treated with antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) for 4.65 +/- 3.80 years ( range 0.2-12) and 24 patients were drug-free, Unilateral hypoperfusion of cerebellum and cerebral subcortical gray matter was demonstrated i n 11 (28%) and 16 (40%) patients, respectively. Most of them also had focal cerebral cortical perfusion abnormalities, ipsilateral or contra lateral to the cerebellar and cerebral subcortical hypoperfusion. The mean asymmetry indices of cerebellar blood flow in the medicated and t he unmedicated patients were significantly higher than in the control cases (P < 0.02 and P < 0.04), whereas the differences in the asymmetr y indices in cerebral subcortical areas were insignificant. AED therap y did not affect the perfusion of cerebellum and cerebral subcortical regions (P > 0.05 and P > 0.05), Our results suggest that functional a lterations on anatomically connected remote areas in patients with par tial epilepsy are not related to the drug effect and probably due to p rimary epileptogenic activity.