Problems of diagnosing focal cortical dysplasia

Abstract

Focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) is one of the most common causes in developing pharmacoresistant epilepsy. We present the clinical case of the patient with generalized seizures. Routine electroencephalography (EEG) data registered diffuse epileptiform activity that allowed to diagnose genetic eneralized epilepsy and pharmacoresistant course of seizures.After performing magnetic resonance imaging using the epileptological program and video-EEG-monitoring, the diagnosis was revised: structural focal epilepsy with seizures with focal onset with oroalimentary, gesture automatisms in the right hand, bilateral tonic-clonic, uncompensated by levetiracetam monotherapy (1500 mg/day). Background disease: congenital malformation of the brain: FCD in the basal parts of the left temporal lobe. Lacosamide was added to the therapy in the drug dose 300 mg/day, and the frequency of epileptic seizures decreased. Differential diagnosis between genetic generalized epilepsy and structural epilepsy with FCD usually poses no obstacles. However, in some cases, structural epilepsy occurs under the “mask” of generalized epilepsy. Hence, this clinical case demonstrates the importance of diagnostic measures in the differential diagnostics of various forms of epilepsy to determine further tactics of patient management.

Keywords

• focal cortical dysplasia
• magnetic resonance imaging
• video-eeg monitoring
• generalized seizures
• generalized epileptiform activity