Kozaburo Aso

Benign Infantile Epilepsy with Complex Partial Seizures

Benign infantile epilepsy with complex partial seizures is characterized by a high incidence of family history of benign childhood convulsions, normal development prior to onset, infantile onset, no underlying disorders, no neurological abnormalities, normal interictal EEGs, good response to treatment, and complete remission with normal developmental outcome. Seizures often occur in clusters, consisting of motion arrest, decreased responsiveness, staring or blank eyes mostly with simple automatisms, and mild convulsive movements associated with focal paroxysmal discharges, most frequently in the temporal area.

Auditory brainstem response: A comparative study of ipsilateral versus contralateral recording in neurological disorders of children

The auditory brain stem response (ABR) was studied in 103 normal and 90 neurologically abnormal children. The ABR was recorded simultaneously in Cz to the mastoid both ipsilateral and contralateral to the stimulated ear. A comparison between the ipsilateral and contralateral recording demonstrated that contralateral recording resulted in a small increase in the latency of peak V, whereas peak III showed a small latency reduction in the large majority of normal and neurologically abnormal children despite relatively large intersubject variability. There were some cases (cerebral palsy, infantile spasms) which demonstrated abnormal ABR only on contralateral recordings. Since most averaging systems have two channels, it is desirable to record the ABR simultaneously on bilateral recordings.

The Prognostic Value of EEG in Neonatal Meningitis

EEG recordings were made polygraphically in 29 newborn infants with meningitis. Visual and auditory evoked potentials, and CT scans were also obtained in some of them. The neonatal findings of these examinations were well correlated with the clinical outcome. Background EEG activity was a good prognostic tool but could not indicate the type of complications, although persistent abnormality correlated with severe brain damage or development of complications. The polygraphically recorded EEG was of great value to diagnose the apneic seizures often encountered in neonatal meningitis.

Intractable Epilepsy in Children

With the recent advent of new diagnostic techniques such as intensive monitoring, there has been an increasing interest in the management of intractable epi1epsy.l According to a recent collaborative study on intractable epilepsy in children, the seizure frequency was unchanged or had increased at the last visit in 212 (13.4%) of 1,581 epileptic children followed up for more than 3 years in five institutions in Japan? This intractable group was compared with 953 patients whose seizures were completely controlled for more than 3 years. It was found that the intractable group was characterized by the higher incidence of those with the onset before 6 months, underlying disorders, preand postnatal etiological factors, mental retardation, motor disabilities and preceding status epilepticus. Our previous study on the prognosis of the first-year epilepsy also disclosed that those who had persistent seizures beyond 6 years were characterized by the higher incidence of delayed development or neurological abnormalities before the onset of seizures, symptomatic etiology, infantile spasms or other types of secondary generalized epilepsy during the first year, evolution into other types of seizures, abnormal EEGs during