Abstracts

Rationale: We describe 9 of the 14 patients with medically-intractable epilepsy whose electroencephalograms demonstrated improvement during treatment with the ketogenic diet.Methods: Retrospective chart review performed. All patients received all of their epilepsy care at our facility. All had a combination of routine and long-term VEEG monitoring prior to and following initiation of the ketogenic diet.Results: Structural abnormalities such as ischemic porencephaly and cortical malformations were the etiologies of epilepsy in 8 of the 14 patients. Six of 14 had Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome with normal MRIs. Patients were treated with the ketogenic diet for 9 months to 12 years. Twelve of 14 were treated concurrently with one or more antiepileptic medications. All patients treated with the ketogenic diet demonstrated improvement in seizure frequency and intensity, including those patients whose EEG did not improve.Conclusions: Improvement on EEG is likely during treatment with the ketogenic diet in pediatric patients with intractable epilepsy.