[Incidence of epilepsy and epileptic syndromes in children in the province of Albacete].

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to determine the incidence rate and the relative frequency of epilepsy and epileptic syndromes during childhood in the province of Albacete.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Patients with childhood epilepsy living in the area have been diagnosed in the Neuropediatric Unit at the General Hospital of Albacete. We included patients under 11 years of age with unprovoked recurring epileptic seizures whose first seizure happened between 1-1-1987 and 1-12-1991, excluding those who have only suffered from febrile seizures and other provoked epileptic seizures.

RESULTS

In the five-year period of the study, 136 patients from a population of 60,000 children under 11 years of age suffered from epilepsy. The annual incidence rate of epilepsy at this age is 45 in 100,000. For those under 1 year it is 113, for those aged 1 to 5 it is 52, and for those between 6 and 10 years 30. The most common epileptic syndrome is benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (29%), followed by undefined generalized idiopathic epilepsy (16%), symptomatic partial epilepsy (15%) and childhood absence epilepsy (9%).

CONCLUSIONS

The epilepsy incidence rates reported here are lower than those found in most studies. Nevertheless, these results agree with some more recent studies. Benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes is the most frequent epileptic syndrome during childhood.