Benign convulsions with mild gastroenteritis: a report of 10 recent cases detailing clinical varieties

To better define the characteristic clinical features of benign convulsions with mild gastroenteritis, recently recognized as a new entity in Japan, we reviewed all the 10 patients we have seen from 1992 to 1994. The clinical features have been previously reported in the literature to be afebrile generalized tonic-clonic seizures occurring between the first and the fifth sick day of mild gastroenteritis. In our series, four of 10 patients had convulsions before the onset of gastroenteritis. Overall, seizures were mostly brief and often repetitive occurring in cluster (19 seizures/10 episodes). Among these, a prolonged or partial seizure was frequently observed. In six of the 10 patients, the seizure type changed during an episode: from generalized to partial seizures (n = 2), from partial to generalized seizures (n = 2), or from partial to another type of partial seizures (n = 2). None in our series experienced a recurrence episode of afebrile convulsion during follow-up. These findings suggest that benign convulsions with mild gastroenteritis exhibit some variations in their clinical manifestation.