Developmental lesions in partial drug-resistant epilepsy of childhood.

This report concerns the histopathological findings in 230 consecutive surg ical specimens of patients with partial drug-resistant epilepsy. Six main p athological groups were identified, corresponding to 74 tumors, 56 developm ental lesions, 47 Ammon's horn sclerosis, II glial or gliomesodermal scars and 4 Rasmussen's encephalitis. In 14 patients, 2 distinct abnormalities we re observed with Ammon's horn sclerosis as one part of the dual pathology. Among malformative lesions, which accounted for approximately one-fourth of the patients, 22 glioneuronal hamartomas, 15 cortical dysplasias (mainly o f the Taylor et al., 1971 type), 5 microdysgenesis, 2 cortical heterotopias , I arachnoid cyst and II cavernomas were observed. In our experience, deve lopmental pathology of childhood with intractable epilepsy was not signific antly different of pathological features observed in adult patients.