P Genton

..In our opinion, JME can be diagnosed in very uncommon settings, including patients with significant brain damage, as long as all the other criteria for the diagnosis are present...

..Dependency in adulthood is nearly constant: Only 3 of our 24 adult patients lived independently...

..Particularly beneficial indications for TGB and/or AED associations including TGB have not been pointed out, but there is a hint that it works best in temporal lobe epilepsies...

..To report three cases of premature death in juvenile myoclonic epilepsy (JME), a benign form of idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE) in which no case of epilepsy-related death has been reported...

....

..A stick pack presentation allows individualized dosing and greater convenience...

..Future research on valproic acid and pregnancy should involve risk assessment in large, population-based prospective studies...

..To prospectively assess the safety and efficacy of levetiracetam in patients with uncontrolled focal epilepsy, in a common practice-based setting...

..Clinicians and patients are still waiting for an etiologically oriented treatment, which should, ideally, be admnistered early in the course of the disease, if possible before the onset of invalidating symptoms...

..The more benign cases usually present with MA as the only seizure type, while patients who experience other seizures, especially generalised tonic-clonic seizures, in association with MA may have a less favourable outcome...

..The treatment of LD remains purely symptomatic. Drugs that may aggravate myoclonus must be avoided. Psychological and social management is of utmost importance in LD. Death occurs 4 to 10 years after onset in typical forms...

..Absence status epilepticus (AS) is a prolonged, generalized, and nonconvulsive seizure that may occur in various circumstances. We report a series of patients in whom recurrent, unprovoked, typical AS was the main clinical feature...

..To date, there is no reason to contraindicate the use of VPA in women with epilepsy. However, patients should be informed about the risk of weight gain and its consequences...

..The presence of PD does not exclude the diagnosis of JME, and PD may represent a further challenge in the comprehensive care of these patients...

..However, juvenile myoclonic epilepsy is often misdiagnosed, and some drugs, especially carbamazepine and phenytoin, may have an aggravating effect...

..These preliminary findings suggest that LEV may have interesting antimyoclonic properties that deserve further investigation...

..The appropriate therapeutic attitude is usually abstention from long-term antiepileptic treatment. It is importance for all clinicians to be familiar with "benign" epilepsy...

..Patients are usually aware of aggravation before their doctors: we should listen carefully whenever they express a 'dislike' for an AED...

..LEV is an antiepileptic drug. Clinical trials have confirmed its efficacy in partial seizures and preliminary findings suggest that it is also effective in generalized seizures and myoclonus...

..1p.100) or by a combination of these (5p.100). It is useful to use slow titration, in order to allow the greatest possible number of patients to benefit from its efficacy as an add-on drug in the treatment of resistant focal epilepsies...

..Brief bursts of bilateral abnormalities occur in about 25% of the cases, mostly with sleepiness. Such findings do not substantiate the existence of a continuum between CAE and BECTS...

..There is a minor risk of aggravation with CBZ and also probably with PB. Drug-induced aggravation may occur only during certain periods coinciding with spontaneous worsening of BECTS...

..There is thus a significant subgroup of patients with juvenile myoclonic epilepsy who pose difficult therapeutic problems, and the prevalence of resistant cases may be increased in the experience of a referral epilepsy centre...

..We concluded that the patient had an unusual form of cryptogenic focal epilepsy originating from the supplementary motor area, presenting as strictly stimulus-triggered "flash" seizures...

..However, this profile was transient and all epileptiform changes disappeared during clinical recovery at 18 months of follow-up...

..No patient had temporal lobe seizures; they did not have myoclonias nor typical absences. The seizure profile in this family appears to be original, and the existence of yet another type of underlying genetic defect can be suspected...

..The authors propose that this form of PME, formerly reported as RHS, be more properly described as Mediterranean myoclonus...