Clinical study of partial epilepsies occurring before two years of life

We analyzed the clinical features of 13 cases (9 boys, 4 girls) with partial epilepsies occurring before 2 years of life. Eight patients developed epilepsy between 4 and 11 months of age (average, 10.9 months). Five patients had complex partial seizures (CPS) alone, 3 had partial seizures evolving to secondarily generalized seizures (PSG) alone, and 5 had both CPS and PSG. Ten patients had clusters of seizures. The most common ictal manifestations were motor phenomena and motionless stares or arrests. Automatisms were noticed in 2 patients, and rarer than in elder childhood or adolescence. The polytherapy of antiepileptic drugs (AED) were needed to control seizures in patients with symptomatic etiology as indicated in previous studies. On the other hand, 5 patients showed normal interictal EEGs, normal development and good response to the AED treatment in spite of the occurrence of clusters of seizures. We concluded that these patients corresponded with benign partial epilepsy in infancy and could have favorable outcome.