Peri-ictal water drinking in temporal lobe epilepsy: Is it a reliable lateralizing sign?

Peri-ictal water drinking has been reported to be a lateralizing sign to the right side in temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). As peri-ictal water drinking is relatively common in our own patients with TLE, we wanted to evaluate its lateralization value for ourselves. We reviewed the data for 55 adult patients with TLE who had undergone epilepsy surgery with a favorable postoperative outcome in our center. Eight patients exhibited peri-ictal water drinking behavior. Five of them had a left temporal and three a right temporal epileptogenic region. We also analyzed cases of peri-ictal water drinking in the literature and found that the reported data do not support this behavior as a laterality indicator. In conclusion, we could not find any evidence for the lateralization value of peri-ictal water drinking in TLE.