Status epilepticus-induced brain damage and opercular syndrome in childhood

Abstract

This study reports on a girl with a permanent cerebral lesion and opercular syndrome after status epilepticus (SE). She had previously been healthy and had her first focal motor seizure at 5 years of age, which was controlled with intravenous phenytoin and rectal diazepam. Twenty-four hours later, she developed partial SE consisting of right facial twitching and right-hand clonic movements. These uncontrollable seizures lasted for 5 days, after which the partial SE changed to generalized SE, and the seizures continued for another 5 days. CT performed the day before onset of SE revealed no brain abnormality. Another CT performed a year later disclosed bilateral brain lesions, more severe in the left hemisphere. Follow up at 16 years of age revealed moderate motor sequelae of the right-hand side of the body, anarthria, difficulty chewing, dysphagia, bilateral facial weakness, and drooling, all of which clinically characterize opercular syndrome. An MRI study performed at 14 years of age showed a cerebral parenchymatous lesion which extended between the parietal cortices of both hemispheres, more severe on the left side, and which crossed the corpus callosum, destroying the posterior-middle zone. Evidence from the CT indicates that the lesion was not present before onset of SE. It seems likely that the focal SE caused the focal brain damage, but the possibility that the subsequent generalized SE played a role cannot be excluded.