Vitamin D deficiency is becoming more common around the world, owing to reduced sunshine exposure and an imbalanced diet. However, severe hypocalcemia as a result of vitamin D insufficiency is a rare occurrence, and it rarely leads to seizures in children. We present such a case in a 6-month-old infant who presented with status epilepticus secondary to hypocalcemia due to vitamin D deficiency, which was first misdiagnosed as epilepsy. Thereby, we want to emphasize that hypocalcemia secondary to vitamin D deficiency can lead to convulsion and the importance of vitamin D supplementation.
A 13-year-old right-handed girl had operculoinsular refractory epilepsy with several seizures per week after temporal lobe epilepsy surgery despite appropriate anticonvulsant therapy. Instead of reoperation, she underwent stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS), which was performed using a linac-based Elekta Axesse SRS machine with a marginal dose of 24 Gy (gross target volume: 6.67 cm 3 ) in one fraction. Post-radiosurgery, she had no clinical or radiological complications. She was maintained on two anti-seizure medications following treatment (valproate and levetiracetam) and was seizure free at the time of this report (during four weeks after SRS). Monthly follow-up was planned for the evaluation of long-term outcomes. SRS may be a safe option for treating intractable focal epilepsy or recurrent epilepsy after surgery failure in children.
Vitamin D deficiency is becoming more common around the world, owing to reduced sunshine exposure and an imbalanced diet. However, severe hypocalcemia as a result of vitamin D insufficiency is a rare occurrence, and it seldom leads to seizures in children. We present such a case in a 6-month-old infant who presented status epilepticus secondary to hypocalcemia due to vitamin D deficiency, which was first misdiagnosed as epilepsy. Thereby we want to emphasize that hypocalcemia secondary to vitamin D deficiency can lead to convulsion and the importance of vitamin D supplementation.
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