Petit mal seizure in a child with Marfan's syndrome.

We report a case of a 17-year-old white girl with Marfan's syndrome and generalized absence-type seizures since 11 years of age. A video EEG recording for six hours demonstrated 52 episodes of clinical generalized absence-type seizures and three-per-second spike and wave epileptiform discharges, characteristic of petit mal epilepsy. Sodium valproate therapy was successful in controlling her seizures. In this article, we review various possible causes of epilepsy in patients with Marfan's syndrome.