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Prolonged ambulatory electroencephalographic monitoring was evaluated in 38 children, aged five weeks to 20 years. Eleven children with known seizure disorders who also had additional episodic symptomatology of unknown etiology were monitored, in eight of these children the "spells" were recorded. For 38% of these cases (3/8) the symptoms were shown to be seizures, while for the other 62% the episodic symptomatology did not represent a seizure. In another 23 children without previously documented seizure disorders, the "spells" were recorded in 11 cases. Only two of these 11 (18%) children with episodic symptomatology were shown to have seizures. This study demonstrates the usefulness of outpatient electroencephalographic monitoring in pediatrics for evaluation of episodic symptomatology of unclear etiology.

The ACTH4-9 Analogue (ORG 2766) is an orally administered neuropeptide which has been showed to have behavioral effects in human subjects, but does not have any steroidogenic effects, nor other significant side effects. This study was a double-blind, crossover trial of the ACTH4-9 analogue in four children with intractable seizures. There was some slight improvement in seizure frequency in two patients, with an equivocal improvement in a third child. A fourth child was unchanged, while the fifth dropped out of the study. There were no side effects from the therapy. This questionable improvement in seizure frequency in some of the most intractable patients with seizure disorders indicates the need to further assess this ACTH4-9 analogue in a larger study over a longer period of time.