Introduction

Benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes or rolandic epilepsy is well recognised,^1-3 but benign childhood occipital seizures (BCOS) are not widely known.^1-7

BCOS have a prevalence of 20-25% among benign childhood partial seizures,⁶ with two clinical forms: early onset BCOS described by Panayiotopoulos^4 6 and late onset BCOS of Gastaut.⁵ Idiopathic photosensitive occipital seizures are also well documented.^8-10

	Early onset benign childhood occipital seizures

Seizures consist of autonomic and behavioural disturbances with vomiting and deviation of the eyes lasting from minutes to hours. They are mainly nocturnal and often progress to convulsions. Consciousness is usually impaired from onset or during the ictus. By definition, seizures lasting for more than half an hour are status epilepticus. In one third of these children, the phase of deviation of the eyes with vomiting and impairment of consciousness is prolonged for more than 30 minutes (partial status epilepticus) and usually ends with generalised convulsions. A typical case is of a child who . . . [Full text of this article]