Considerations on neonatal epileptic encephalopathies apropos of a personal case

Studies were done on a newborn with tonic status seizures beginning at 15 days old to his death at 3 months of age. The clinical features were: (1) important psychomotor retardation; (2) tonic seizures consisting of flexion or extension of the upper limbs and head, ocular revulsion, facial cyanosis and respiration troubles. The seizure mean duration was from 4 to 6 sec. The seizures appeared sometimes isolated, sometimes in bursts with an increasing frequency but not related to the nycthemeral cycle. In the EEG there appears a 'burst-suppression' pattern which persists continuously whether the patient was asleep or awake. The clinical and electroencephalographic findings suggest Ohtahara's syndrome. Some considerations are made about the clinical, electroencephalographic and aetiologic findings of the several epileptic encephalopathies with suppression bursts in the newborn.