A study on visual evoked responses in childhood epilepsy with occipital paroxysms

As some apparently idiopatic epilepsies may occasionally pose diagnostic di fficulties in regard to their precise status of etiology, evoked potentials , particularly visual evoked potential (VEP), may contribute to the diagnos is of childhood epilepsy with occipital paroxysms (CEOP) as a subsidiary me thod of evaluation. This study includes 19 children (10 boys 52.6%; 9 girls 47.4%) ranging in a ge from 5 to 17 years (mean +/- SD = 9.68 +/- 3.28) suffering from CEOP and a control group of 30 normal children, matched for chronological age and s ex. Peak amplitudes and latencies of the P100 component for pattern-shift V EP (PVEP) and of major positivity for hash VEP (FVEP) are measured, respect ively. The results from this study demonstrate that amplitude and latency values i n patients with CEOP differs insignificantly when compared with controls. A lthough, non-significantly, mean values of amplitudes for both PVEP and FVE P were higher in the patients than in the normal children, whereas latencie s in FVEP were somewhat longer. There may be some tendency for the amplitudes to increase and the latencies to be delayed in VEPs in patients with CEOP, when an overall interpretatio n of our and similar studies are considered. In certain cases of diagnostic difficulty, VEP values may provide further information for the clinician, regarding either a symptomatic or an idiopathic nature of the underlying di sorder. (C) 2000 BEA Trading Ltd.