Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0014547 (focal epilepsy)
 1,627 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Between 3700 and 3900 children are admitted annually to this children's hospital. During the past four years a total of 455 children with convulsions were admitted for investigation. 255 of these cases were calcified as epilepsy, 202 as febrile convulsions and 28 as neonatal convulsions. A quarter of the epileptic children showed fits of the petit mal type. There were only 5 cases of infantile propulsive petit mal. High frequency of fits and, in particular, status epilepticus, were very rarely seen in the present study. A case of self-induced photosensitive epilepsy, later combined with psychomotor epilepsy, is referred to in detail. Of 149 children with grand mal epilepsy, 36 were classed as idiopathic, and 88 as symptomatic cases. 37 of the symptomatic cases showed focal epilepsy with generalisation. It was concluded from the clinical course and the EEG that the combined effects of familial predisposition towards fits and exogenous cerebral lesions were operative factors in 14 patients. Children with febrile, convulsions possessed an EEG suggestive of a familial predisposition towards fits in slightly more than 50% of the cases. No cause could be found for the seizures in 5 infants with neonatal convulsions, but the mother of one of these infants was an epileptic herself, undergoing treatment with anticonvulsive drugs in high dosage and a withdrawal syndrome was suspected in this particular case. 17 infants with neonatal convulsions were symptomless on leaving hospital and remained so during the first year of life. Of the remaining cases, 10 showed neurological disturbances and one died. There was only one case in which neonatal convulsions progressed directly to epilepsy. The peak incidence of the first appearance of fits occurred during the first year of life (136 children), with 18% of the entire case material presenting within the first 6 months. 108 children presented with fits for the first time during the second year of life. Thereafter, the tendency towards the development of fits for the first time in life declined with increasing age.
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PMID:[Aspects of epilepsy in childhood (author's transl)]. 81 19

The present study classified epilepsies in Nigerians and compared them with the profile of epilepsies as found in other countries: India, France, and Denmark. Partial epilepsy formed the largest group (76.6%) in this study and in that in India (80%), but these incidences were higher than that found in France (62%), owing to a higher frequency of birth injury, CNS infections, and childhood febrile convulsions in developing countries. In contrast to our study and that in France, where partial epilepsy with complex symptomatology formed the largest subgroup, partial epilepsy with elementary symptomatology formed the largest subgroup in India. The reason for this is not totally clear, though etiological factors and criteria for categorization are contributory. The incidence of partial epilepsy was lower in children than in adults owing to a relatively lower incidence of partial epilepsy with elementary symptomatology in children in the present series and a lower incidence of complex symptomatology in children in France and Denmark. Nigerian children seem more vulnerable to complex symptomatology owing to a high incidence of febrile illness (e.g., from malaria) and febrile convulsions. The incidence of generalized epilepsies in children was higher than in adults. Grand mal formed the largest subgroup of generalized epilepsies in children in this series and in Denmark, whereas petit mal formed the largest subgroup in France and India. Petit mal was relatively rare in children in our series (2.5%) compared with children in the French study (17.5%). Secondary generalized epilepsy was peculiar to children in all the series.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
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PMID:Classification of the epilepsies: an investigation of 945 patients in a developing country. 392 51