Childhood Status Epilepticus and Excitotoxic Neuronal Injury
Received 18 January 2006; accepted 4 December 2006.
This report describes the case of an 11-year-old girl with a prior history of epilepsy and multiple episodes of status epilepticus who presented with generalized convulsive status epilepticus and left hemiclonic seizures. Magnetic resonance imaging, including diffusion-weighted sequences and spectroscopy, and neuropathology at autopsy were consistent with excitotoxic neuronal injury to the hippocampus, cortex, thalamus, mammillary bodies, and cerebellum. Review of the literature revealed 11 similar cases that support the hypothesis of excitotoxic neuronal cell death after status epilepticus.
⁎Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
†Department of Radiology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
‡Department of Pathology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California
§Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, City and County of San Francisco, San Francisco, California.
Communications should be addressed to: Dr. Tsuchida; Children’s National Medical Center; 111 Michigan Ave. NW; Washington, DC 20008.
ABSTRACT