"Pseudo-BECRS": intracranial focal lesions suggestive of a primary partial epilepsy syndrome.

Benign epilepsy of childhood with rolandic spikes (BECRS) is an electroclinical entity that is the most common primary partial epilepsy syndrome of childhood. Typically presenting between the ages of 3 and 13 years, it is characterized by a well-recognized seizure pattern arising in a normal child with EEG findings restricted to rolandic/centrotemporal regions. Seizure control is usually easily achieved and prognosis is believed to be uniformly good. Some authors have suggested that individuals fitting the electroclinical parameters of this entity need not undergo neuroimaging due to the benign evolution of this disorder. Five patients presenting over a 13-year period with peribuccal seizures, normal neurologic examinations, and EEG data initially suggestive of BECRS found to have focal lesions on neuroimaging are summarized. Independent bilateral centrotemporal epileptiform abnormalities were seen in 3 patients. Imaging studies (CT, MRI, or both) documented a mass lesion in all in variable locations. Histologic examination documented a low-grade astrocytoma in 3 patients and a cavernous angioma in another. The fifth patient refused treatment or biopsy. Careful retrospective review of the clinical features of these patients reveals variable atypical features in each. Therefore, despite an electroclinical phenotype initially suggestive of the BECRS presentation, the presence of atypical clinical features raises the possibility of an underlying structural lesion and thus a negative neuroimaging study may in some patients be essential to the definitive accurate diagnosis of BECRS.