Clinical and genetic aspect of 30 tunisian families with febrile seizures.

BACKGROUND

FS are the most benign occasional seizures in childhood. Little is known about the long term follow up.  Aim: To describe a long term follow-up of FS in Tunisian families.

METHODS

Field study was conducted for 30 patients with FS. We analyzed clinical phenotype of FS and associated afebrile seizures with genetic study.

RESULTS

We collected 107 individuals with febrile and / or afebrile seizures. Afebrile seizures were found in 28.3% of patients. The "FS" phenotype was found in 18 families (60%), "GEFS +" in 7 (23.33%), and idiopathic generalized epilepsy in 5 (16.66%). Sequencing analyses of SCN1A, SCN1B and GABRG2 genes revealed a novel SCN1B gene mutation in one family with FS and a known SCN1A mutation in GEFS+ family.

CONCLUSION

If FS are apparently isolated and infrequent, they occur most often in a family setting. The genetic studies remain difficult mainly because of the lack of phenotype-genotype correlation.