Brain & development
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Brain & development · Jan 2010
ReviewEpileptic encephalopathy in children possibly related to immune-mediated pathogenesis.
Severe epilepsy in the paediatric population negatively influences neurological and cognitive development. Different etiological factors could be responsible of these severe epilepsies, and an early diagnosis could change, in some cases, the neurological and cognitive development. Immune mechanisms have been reported in epilepsy. ⋯ Among children with acquired symptomatic severe epilepsy, we identified a group of previously normal children who had developed severe partial epilepsy after an acute/sub-acute illness resembling encephalitis. The etiological factors for those patients seems to remain unknown, and a possible immune-mediating or inflammatory process as pathogenesis of the disease could be hypothesized. More studies need to be addressed to finally define this peculiar epileptic entity.