Epidemiology of different types of epilepsy in school age children of Modena, Italy.

An epidemiologic study of epilepsy in school age children has been carried out in Modena, Italy, during the period 1968 to 1973. The prevalence of epileptics aged 5 to 14 years varied between 3.98% and 4.91%. The accession rate varied between 60 and 98 cases /100,000. The primary generalized epilepsies represent 30.8%, the epilepsies with rolandic spike foci 23.9%, the other types of partial epilepsy 42.1%, and the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome 3.2%. Of the 178 epileptics diagnosed during school age, 159 have been followed for at least 4 years, with recovery in 55% of the cases and tendency to improve in 24%.