All issues > Volume 32(1); 1989

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1989;32(1):62-66. Published online January 31, 1989.

Clinical Study of Patients with Benign Rolandic Epilepsy(BRE).

Seung Koog Kim¹, Sung Ho Cha¹, Sa Jun Chung¹, Chang Il Ahn¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, Kyung Hee University, Seoul, Korea

Received: June 17, 1988;  Accepted: September 22, 1988.

Abstract

BRE, probably the commonest varierity of partial epilepsy in childhood has 6 characteristics; it occurs in children, without neuropsychiatric antecidents, never related to progressive cerebral lesion, interictal EEG shows Rolandic spikes, the seizure are varied and there is always recovery in puberty at the latest. We reviewed 70 patients with BRE to observe the age and sex distribution, EEG findings, clinical sign and symptoms, treatment pattern and prognosis after treatment from Jan. 1983 to May 1987. The result as follows; 1) The male to female incidence ratio was 1.5:1. The age of seizure on t were 4 - 12 years old in 87.1 % with a clear maximum at 7 -9 years old (32.8%) and no patient was above 15 years old. 2) More than half of the seizure (68.6%) occured during sleep and 33.4% occured during awake. Duration of seizure was below few seconds (55.7%) and below 30 minutes (98.6%). 3) Family history of epilepsy was obtained in 17.1 %. Among the birth history, neonatal anoxia was obtained in 4.3% and 1.4% of patients were born prematurely. 4) Pattern of seizure shows generalized tonic and/ or clonic seizure (48.6%), jerks of extrimities (34. 3%), hemifacial jerk (32.9%), oropharyngeal sign (15.7%), abdominal pain (1 1.4%) and aphonia (7.1%). 5) In 52 patients (74.3%) the seizure did not recur after treatment was started. In 9 patients (12.9%) the seizure persisted for 3 months to 1 year and then disappeared when the dose of medication was increased. In 9 patients (12.9%) the seizure persisted more than 1 year or recurred after one to many years.

Keywords :Benign Rolandic Epilepsy (BRE), Rolandic spike