EPIDEMIOLOGY OF EPILEPSY IN CHILDHOOD - A COHORT OF 440 CONSECUTIVE PATIENTS

This study analyzes the relative frequency and age of onset of the dif ferent seizure types in a 20-year cohort of a pediatric neurology outp atient clinic of an urban hospital that serves the majority of the cit y's population (Tel Aviv Medical Center). Only patients with two or mo re unprovoked seizures were included, Neonatal seizures sere excluded from the analysis, The different seizure types in descending ol def of frequency were: partial seizures secondarily generalized (20.6%), com plex partial seizures (12.5%), West syndrome (9%), simple partial seiz ures (8.6%), benign rolandic epilepsy of childhood (8%), absence seizu res (7%), generalized tonic-clonic seizures (6.6%), generalized tonic seizures (5%), myoclonic seizures (2.2%), benign occipital epilepsy of childhood (2%), mixed type seizures (1.8%), Lennox-Gastaut syndrome ( 1.5%), juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (0.9%), atypical absence (0.6%), La ndau-Kleffner syndrome, Ohtahara syndrome, myoclonic astatic epilepsy, electrical status epilepticus in sleep and startle epilepsy (0.2% eac h), and unclassified seizures (12%). The findings of this study confir m that there are more pediatric patients with partial seizures (52%) t han primary generalized seizures (33%) and that partial seizures secon darily generalized is the most frequent seizure type in this age group . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.