Epidemiology of epilepsy in childhood: A cohort of 440 consecutive patients

This study analyzes the relative frequency and age of onset of the different seizure types in a 20-year cohort of a pediatric neurology outpatient clinic of an urban hospital that serves the majority of the city's population (Tel Aviv Medical Center). Only patients with two or more unprovoked seizures were included, Neonatal seizures sere excluded from the analysis, The different seizure types in descending ol def of frequency were: partial seizures secondarily generalized (20.6%), complex partial seizures (12.5%), West syndrome (9%), simple partial seizures (8.6%), benign rolandic epilepsy of childhood (8%), absence seizures (7%), generalized tonic-clonic seizures (6.6%), generalized tonic seizures (5%), myoclonic seizures (2.2%), benign occipital epilepsy of childhood (2%), mixed type seizures (1.8%), Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (1.5%), juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (0.9%), atypical absence (0.6%), Landau-Kleffner syndrome, Ohtahara syndrome, myoclonic astatic epilepsy, electrical status epilepticus in sleep and startle epilepsy (0.2% each), and unclassified seizures (12%). The findings of this study confirm that there are more pediatric patients with partial seizures (52%) than primary generalized seizures (33%) and that partial seizures secondarily generalized is the most frequent seizure type in this age group. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.