[The benign myoclonic epilepsy of infancy (author's transl)].

The authors report observations on 7 children who have shown an early epilepsy characterized only by brief myoclonic fits, with generalized spikes and waves on the EEG. This type of epilepsy had a favorable evolution in all cases under treatment (usually VPA). In 2 cases, rare grand mal seizures appeared between 9 and 12 years. The authors discuss the situation of this epilepsy among all the myoclonic childhood epilepsies reported in the literature. They conclude that it is an early type of primary generalized epilepsy.