Long-term outcome of benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes: Dutch Study of Epilepsy in Childhood

Purpose: Determine long-term outcome in a cohort of children with newly diagnosed benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS). Method: Thirty children with BECTS were included in the Dutch Study of Epilepsy in Childhood. All children were followed for 12-17 years. Twenty children had typical BECTS, ten had atypical BECTS (age at onset 5 years and 89% of >10 years. Mean duration of epilepsy from onset to TRFwas 2.7 years; mean age at reaching TRFwas 10.6 years. Many children (63%) had experienced one or more (secondary) GTCS. Eighty percent had used antiepileptic drugs (mean duration 3.0 years). As far as we know, none of the children had developed learning problems or had shown any arrest of cognitive development during follow-up. No significant differences were observed in patient characteristics or outcome between children with typical BECTS and children with atypical BECTS. Conclusion: All children in our cohort, both with typical and atypical BECTS, had a very good prognosis with high remission rates after 12-17 years. None of the predictive factors for disease course and outcome as described in earlier studies was prognostic in our cohort