Childhood epilepsy in a German city.

The incidence of epilepsy in children between 0 up to 8 years in the city of Kiel in Northern Germany was calculated. The study is based on a case documentation of the Kiel Epilepsy Center from 1957 to 1975. In this period 235 children were registered who were born in the years 1957 to 1966 and suffered from a single or recurrent epileptic seizures prior to their 9th birthday. Based upon the 37 691 children born in Kiel in the years 1957 to 1966, the mean cumulative risk for a single or recurrent epileptic seizures through the age of 8 is 6.23% (7.27% for boys, 5.12% for girls). Sixty percent of the children had their first seizure prior to the third birthday. The incidence rate for children below the age of 9 was 71.9/100.000 in 1965 and 72.4/100.000 in 1966. The maximum incidence rate was found in the first year of life (201.6).--The prevalence could only be estimated by summation of the cumulative incidence and was 4.5% in 1965. The clinical symptomatology was dominated by grand mal (68%), followed by partial seizures with complex (17%) and elementary symptomatology (16%), nonconvulsive generalized seizures (13%), infantile spasms (8%). Remarkably frequent is the benign epilepsy with centro-temporal sharp waves comprising 8% of the total group.