Retrospective evaluation of patients with centrotemporal spine epilepsy in childhood

Introduction and Objective: Epilepsy is a chronic disease which is very common in society and affects individuals in many ways. Especially children who are in the stage of growth and development acquire physical, mental and social development skills and the disease may cause problems. Childhood centrotemporal spike wave epilepsy is the most common epilepsy syndrome in children. However, the fact that seizures are rare, dormant and tend to end spontaneously after the age of 16 indicates a good prognosis. Correct diagnosis and treatment approach is important in these patients. For this reason, treatment efficacy, determination of recurrence rate after cessation of drug, determination of risk factors for recurrence and evaluation of treatment process of atypical course were aimed. Materials and Methods: The data of 90 patients with childhood centrotemporal spike wave epilepsy from Ege University Pediatric Neurology Clinic were examined from patient files. The families that need to be reached were called by phone. Results: In our study 35 (38.9%) of the patients were female and 55 (61.1%) were male. The male / female ratio was 1,57. The age of onset of seizures was between 4 and 15 years, and the mean age was 7.98 ± 2.3 years; 65.6% of the patients were in the 7-10 age group. Although most of the EEG's (81.1%) had unilateral foci, bilateral epileptic focuses were present in 18.9%. Bilateral activity was associated with ESES pathology, and the number of seizures after drug initiation was a risk factor for seizure recurrence after drug discontinuation. Ten of the patients (11.1%) did not receive any medication and 58 (64.4%) patients received monotherapy. The most commonly used drugs were valproic acid (30%) and oxcarbazepine (27.9%). Of the 80 patients receiving medication, 43(53.8%) completed therapy and 9(20.9%) of these patients had seizure recurrence in the first year. It was found that there was a statistically significant relationship between recurrence and the duration of active disease before drug cessation (p = 0.023) and the number of seizures before drug cessation (p=0.02). Key words: Childhood centrotemporal spike wave epilepsy, recurrence of seizures, antiepileptic therapy