Absence status in the adult. New results including computerized transverse axial tomography.

7 adult cases with petit mal status are described; most of these patients had clinical recurrences of petit mal seizures after time intervals ranging from 15 to 50 years. Electroencephalography (EEG) and computerized transverse axial tomography (CT) findings are described and correlated. All CT studies showed frontal lobe abnormalities. When speaking of absence status in the adult, it is useful to distinguish between such an event within the course of primary generalized epilepsy and its reactivation after a very long seizure-free period at an older age. Such reactivations occur preferentially in women. CT supplies more structural information on the living brain and thus we could identify a dysplastic configuration of the skull and hemispheres in a 28-year-old patient and frontocortical and moderate subcortical lesions in the older age-group. The role of the frontal lobe in releasing spike-and-wave discharges of different degrees of generalization appears to be a new aspect worthy of further investigation.