Abstract
INTRODUCTION: West syndrome, formed by seizures spasms, psychomotor development delay and hypsarrhythmia, is a catastrophic generalized epileptic syndrome that evolves to another type of epilepsy, generally with difficult management and with a prognosis that depends on its ethiology.
OBJETIVES: to presented the clinical characteristics of patients with diagnosis of West’s syndrome-infantile spasms in two institution of third level.
MATERIALS AND METHODS: transversal, descriptive study of patients with diagnosis of West’s syndrome or infantile spasms during a two-year period (2002-2004) in the neuropediatrics’ Department of the Central Military Hospital and Roosvelt Institute of Bogotá - Colombia.
RESULTS: sample of 36 patients, with an age of diagnosis surrounding 3-5 months, most of them males (58.3%). Spasms in flexion were predominant (53%). 61% presented hypsarrhythmia and 33% without an hypsarrhythmic pattern that belong to the group of patients with infantile spasms diagnosis. The etiology symptomatic included 80% medical problems during pregnancy and birth, and 38% after birth. Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy was the principal diagnosic which correlates to the findings in neuroimages.
The treatment of election in this sample was vigabatrin (75%), 38% as monoteraphy. The West’s syndrome evolves to another type of epilepsy: focal in 38% of patients, Lennox-Gastaut’s syndrome in 11%. Neurological disabilities asociated included abnormalities in the psychomotor development in 80% of patients.
CONCLUSIONS: the results show that there is a similar tendency in the age of appearance, genre, type of spasms and prognosis, compare to the world reports, but there are important differences related to the syndrome’s etiology, and the response to treatment in our population (Acta Neurol Colomb 2005;21:115-120).
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