OBJECTIVETo investigate clinical characteristics, EEG changes and therapeutic response of benign infantile epilepsy and to study the early diagnostic methods.

METHODSClinical observation and Video-EEG monitoring were carried out in babies with convulsions at 3 - 24 months of age. In these children, febrile convulsion, symptomatic epilepsies and developmental abnormalities were excluded, and the therapeutic effect and long-term outcome were followed up.

RESULTSForty-two babies were diagnosed to have benign infantile epilepsy by two-year follow-up. Three of them had familial history of benign infantile convulsions. Nineteen percent had mild diarrhea during the onset of convulsions, cluster seizures occurred during a short period in 67% of cases and no status epilepticus occurred. Video-EEG monitoring confirmed seizures originating from temporal, occipital or multifocal areas separately in 3 patients with partial seizures. Interictal EEG background was normal and there were Rolandic small spikes during sleep in 24% of patients. Thirty-nine patients were treated with single antiepileptic drugs and the mean treatment course was 9 months. Three cases did not take medicine. All the patients were seizure free within a year.

CONCLUSIONBenign infantile epilepsy should be considered when the following characteristics occur in early stage of the disease: (1) convulsions occurring between 3 to 12 month of age and not later than 24 months of age with or without familial history of benign infantile convulsion; (2) normal psychomotor development before and after convulsion occurs; (3) no evoked factors or only mild diarrhea; (4) majority of cases have partial seizures, or secondary generalized seizures. There are often cluster convulsions during the onset stage, but no status epilepticus; (5) normal EEG background and there may be Rolandic small spikes during sleep; (6) normal neuroimaging.