[Cerebral tumors as a cause of refractory epilepsy in children]

Cerebral tumours are a cause of seizures in less than 1-2% of children epilepsy. Seizure symptoms usually precede the diagnosis by several years and are often the only symptoms of an ongoing process. The symptomatology of the seizures often correlates with localization of a neoplastic lesion. The authors present six children aged 3 to 18 in whom epileptic seizures not susceptible to treatment were caused by cerebral tumours. The duration of epilepsy until the determining of the aetiology was various--from half a year to 13 years. In each of our six patients focal epilepsy occurred with simple or complex seizures with secondary generalization. It was only one patient in whom the tomography of the head turned out to be sufficient enough to establish the diagnosis of a brain tumour; in the other ones MR was necessary. The final diagnosis in four of the children was supported by histopathologic examination carried out during a neurosurgical procedure, whereas in one of them--by means of biopsy of the brain.