Original Research Article
Year: 2020 | Month: October | Volume: 10 | Issue: 10 | Pages: 211-216
Clinical and Etiological Profile of Children with Epileptic Encephalopathy
Arpita Adhikari1, Payal Shah2, Mona Gajre3, Sushma Keshav4
1Associate Professor, 2Fellow, 3Professor, 4Resident,
Division of Neurology Epilepsy and Developmental Pediatrics, Department of Pediatrics, Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and General Hospital, Sion, Mumbai, India.
Corresponding Author: Sushma Keshav
ABSTRACT
Background: Epileptic encephalopathyis a group of electro-clinical syndromes presenting with varied presentation with very few Indian studies. This study aims to describe the aetiology and clinical profile of children with epileptic encephalopathy and classify them into epileptic syndromes.
Methods: History and investigations (electroencephalogram, neuroimaging) of children coming to the paediatric neurology outpatient of a tertiary care hospital in Western India and satisfying the criteria for epileptic encephalopathy were recorded and analysed.
Results: Out of the 34 children studied, 27 had onset of seizures within one year of age and the remaining had seizure onset between 1 to 6 years of age, most common seizure semiology being epileptic spasms (in 22/34) followed by erratic myoclonus, focal tonic clonic and generalized tonic clonic and 8 had multiple seizure types.27 out of the 34 had microcephaly and developmental delay at presentation. On classification into epileptic syndromes, majority had west syndrome (21/34), followed by early myoclonic encephalopathy (5/34), epileptic encephalopathy with continuous spike and wake during sleep (5/34) and early infantile encephalopathy (1/34). The most common etiology for epileptic encephalopathy in our study was found to be perinatal insult (13/34) in the form of birth asphyxia and neonatal hypoglycemia. Other causes included post infectious sequelae (5/34), structural abnormalities like aicardi syndrome (2/34).
Conclusions: The most common epileptic encephalopathy in our setting was west syndrome with etiology being perinatal asphyxia. Most of the children were infants with microcephaly and developmental delay at presentation.
Key words: Epileptic encephalopathy, encephalopathy syndromes, modified hypsarrhythmia