Pentamethylenetetrazol, though an excellent drug for the provocation of epileptiform discharges, often causes untoward clinical seizures or ~t +. s cpilepticus.
Various evaluations by many i ., stigators have been made on the clinical significance of sleep EEG as a technique of the provocation before the use of pentamethylenetetrazol.
The purpose of this study is to verify the clinical value of sleep tracing in the Korean eases of convulsive disorders as compared with the results reporte( by other investigators.
Of the patients refered to Seoul National University Hospital EEG laboratory during the past 5 years, 1570 cases with clinical seizures were analysed.
Their EEG tracings comprised: 1) Waking spontaneous EEG, 2) Spontaneous sleep EEG and 3) Drug induced sleep EEG. The percentages of EEG abnormalities by the above three methods were 50. 1%, 58.8% and 63.5% respectively.
The drug-induced sleep EEG showed a higher rate ^` ?ho provocation were compared by each age brachet. :the younger age group revealed higher rate of abnormality by provocation.
This result gives a significance to the clinical use of sleep EEG but the procedure has yet to be improved to show a higher rate of the provocation as recorded by Gibbs and Gibbs who had provided as much time as 3-4 hours for one tracing.
Furthermore, it is necessary to investigate the provocation rates of sleep EEG of each subtypes of epileptic seizures including focal seizure disorders.
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