Cases of Epileptic Syndrome

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disorder characterized by recurrent seizures, with multiple clinical causes and complex and diverse seizure symptoms. Epilepsies with the same etiology and similar clinical features are called epileptic syndrome. The diagnosis of epileptic syndrome is based on the age of onset, etiology, and type of seizure. The most common syndromes include West syndrome, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and a group of epilepsies with myoclonic seizures. For most epileptic syndromes, a surgical treatment is not considered because of their complex etiology, which is mostly genetic and metabolic. However, a small number of catastrophic epileptic syndromes are symptomatic, for which a surgical treatment may be considered, including epileptic spasms, a group of epilepsies with myoclonic seizures, Rasmussen’s encephalitis, Sturge-Weber syndrome, Tuberous sclerosis complex, and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome. With the improvement of localization techniques and the increasing understanding of epilepsy in recent years, some epilepsy syndrome is considered to be focal epilepsy, which could be treated by surgery.