Benign infantile seizures (a French collaborative study).

Background. - Benign infantile non febrile seizures are not well known, lea ding us to study their clinical and EEG characteristics. Methods. - Between 1981 and 1994, we assembled 34 patients with the followi ng inclusion criteria; non febrile seizures between 1 month and 2 years of age, normal personal history, no abnormality on clinical, biological and ra diological investigations, normal developmental outcome with a least 1 year follow-up. Results. - These 34 patients were recognized as 14 familial cases (identica l seizures affecting parents) and 11 non familial cases. The other nine cas es had different or undefined epilepsy in the family. The clinical and EEG characteristics were the same; at the mean age of 6 months, brief partial s eizures (often secondarily or apparently generalized) occurring in a cluste r of two to 12 episodes a day for mean duration of 2.5 days with ictal EEG showing focal discharge, often slow waves or focal spikes on post-ictal tra cing and normal interictal EEG. Conclusion. - The clinical and EEG characteristics are important in order t o recognize this type of infantile convulsions (familial or not familial), which have a good prognosis and need no aggressive treatment. (C) 1999 Else vier, Paris.