Two infants presented at 3 weeks and 3 months of age with intractable partial seizures. Extensive investigations failed to identify an underlying cause. There was no response to antiepileptic drug therapy and no developmental progress following the onset of the seizures. In both infants there was a distinctive pattern of seizures that arose independently from multiple regions of both hemispheres. Interictal electroencephalograms revealed multifocal epileptiform activity. The infants died aged 9 and 12 months. One underwent postmortem examination, which was normal with no hippocampal sclerosis. These infants fulfill the diagnostic criteria of the syndrome of migrating partial seizures in infancy described by Coppola and colleagues in 1995. (J Child Neurol 2000;15:717-722).
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