"Benign" infantile seizures

Kenjiro Kikuchi, Shin-ichiro Hamano, Norimichi Higurashi, Ryuki Matsuura, Kotoko Suzuki, Manabu Tanaka, Motoyuki Minamitani.  Difficulty of early diagnosis and requirement of long-term follow-up in benign infantile seizures.  To appear in: Pediatric Neurology.  Accepted Date: 28 March 2015

 

Abstract

 

Purpose

To investigate whether benign infantile seizures can be diagnosed in the acute phase.

Methods

We retrospectively investigated the medical records of 44 patients initially diagnosed as having acute phase benign infantile seizures. All patients were followed for ≥12 months and we reviewed patients’ psychomotor development and presence or absence of seizure recurrence at the last visit. Patients were divided into the following three groups according to the final diagnosis: benign infantile seizures, benign infantile seizures associated with mild gastroenteritis, and non-benign infantile seizures. We defined benign infantile seizures associated with mild gastroenteritis and benign infantile seizures as those associated with normal psychomotor development and no seizure recurrence 3 months after onset of the first seizure, whereas non-benign infantile seizures were associated with delayed psychomotor development and/or seizure recurrence after 3 months of onset of the first seizure. We analyzed the clinical features in the acute phase and compared them between the groups.

Results

The median age at onset was 7.6 months. A final diagnosis of benign infantile seizures associated with mild gastroenteritis was made in 3 patients. In the remaining 41 patients, the final diagnosis was benign infantile seizures in 30 (73.2%) and non-benign infantile seizures in 11 (26.8%). In the non-benign infantile seizure group, intellectual disability was diagnosed in 8 patients and seizure recurrence in 6. There were no significant differences in clinical features between the groups in the acute phase, such as seizure type or seizure duration.

Conclusion

About 30% of patients initially diagnosed as having benign infantile seizures did not experience a benign clinical course. Our findings suggest that clinical features in the acute phase are not helpful for predicting benign outcomes in benign infantile seizures and that only long-term follow-up can discriminate benign infantile seizures from non-benign infantile seizures.