Epilepsia
-
Comparative Study
Economic burden of epilepsy in a developing country: a retrospective cost analysis in China.
To study the cost of epilepsy in China, and, therefore, provide essential information on the burden of the disease to individuals and society. ⋯ The results indicate that the economic burden of epilepsy to both Chinese patients and the nation is heavy, and the composition proportions of the costs in China have many similar features and some noteworthy differences with that of other countries.
-
Comparative Study
Language lateralization in epilepsy patients: fMRI validated with the Wada procedure.
This work examines the efficacy of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) for language lateralization using a comprehensive three-task language-mapping approach. Two localization methods and four different metrics for quantifying activation within hemisphere are compared and validated with Wada testing. Sources of discordance between fMRI and Wada lateralization are discussed with respect to specific patient examples. ⋯ Discordance was dependent upon whether whole-brain or midline exclusion method-based lateralization was calculated, and in the former case the inclusion of the occipital and other midline regions often negatively influenced the lateralization scores. Overall fMRI was in agreement with the Wada test in 91.3% of patients, suggesting its utility for clinical use with the proper consideration given to the confounds discussed in this work.
-
We report a 2-year-old girl who had repeated febrile or afebrile seizures since infancy. Prolonged left/right hemiconvulsions and myoclonus of the eyelids/extremities with generalization to tonic-clonic seizures, were refractory to antiepileptic agents. At age 1 year and 4 months, she contracted rotavirus infection, and developed status epilepticus with persistent right hemiclonic seizures. ⋯ Analysis for SCN1A, the gene encoding the neuronal voltage-gated Na+ channel alpha1 subunit revealed a nonsense mutation, R1892X. These indicate the potential risk in patients with severe myoclonic epilepsy in infancy (SMEI) to develop hemiconvulsion-hemiplegia (HH) syndrome. SCN1A mutations may need to be further explored in patients with HH syndrome without features of SMEI.
-
Comparative Study
Pregnancy, delivery, and outcome for the child in maternal epilepsy.
To investigate pregnancy, delivery, and child outcome in an unselected population of women with both treated and untreated epilepsy. ⋯ Adverse pregnancy and birth outcome in women with epilepsy is mainly confined to AED-exposed pregnancies, although some risks are associated also with untreated epilepsy. The risk for congenital malformations was lower than previously reported. This could be due to a shift in AED selection, folic acid supplement, or possibly reflect the true risks in an unselected epilepsy population.
-
Typical benign rolandic epilepsy (BRE) is a frequent and well-delineated epileptic syndrome in childhood. Mild cognitive and behavioral difficulties are increasingly recognized in the course of BRE and should not be considered as atypical features. ⋯ Atypical evolutions of BRE are defined by the appearance of severe neuropsychological impairments and continuous spike-and-waves during slow sleep (CSWSS). The clinical expressions of these situations correspond to the syndromes known as atypical benign focal epilepsy of childhood (ABFEC), status of BRE, Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS), and CSWSS syndrome, which may be part of a continuum related to BRE.