Benign epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes (BECTS) is the most common focal epilepsy of the childhood and also one of the best known. It has a proclivity to start at a particular age and remit spontaneously before adolescence. Majority of patients may avoid long-term treatment, because of the mild course and very good outcome. Only few patients may present cognitive deficits if the proper treatment is not implied. BECTS is a part of heterogeneous group of syndromes that consists of Landau-Kleffner Syndrome (LKS), Continuous Spike-and-Wave during Sleep (CSWS) and Atypical benign partial epilepsy (ABPE). These syndromes may be also a result of various trajectories that BECTS may evolve to. Disease is suggested to have genetic origins, as some patients have relatives with different types of epilepsy. The discovery of the pathogenic mechanism of the disease and implementation of targeted therapy belong to the main challenges in the treatment of these patients.
Guillain-Barre syndrome (GBS) is an acute inflammatory polyneuropathy, characterised by progressive, symmetrical muscle weakness and sensory disorder due to autoimmunologic myelin nerve sheats and/or peripheral nerves axonal damage. The course of the disease in children is usually milder than in adults. The most common variant of GBS is acute inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy (AIDP). GBS is a rare disorder with morbidity rate of 0,5-1,5/100 000/ year, more often seen in males. The course of disease in children is usually milder than in adults. Early diagnosis and proper treatment enables complete recovery in 80% of cases, while approximately 10% of patients suffer from symptoms recurrence, mainly after infection. Almost 2/3 of GBS cases are preceded by upper respiratory or gastrointestinal infection. The emergence of antibodies in various mechanisms, which cross react with nerve sheats or axon antigens (through a phenomenon known as molecular mimicry), leads to development of the syndrome. Known triggers inducing GBS include viral and bacterial infections, injuries, surgery, bone marrow transplantation and rarely childhood vaccinations. In still rarer cases, GBS may develop in the course of paraneoplastic syndrome (PNS), and be the first symptom of an underlying neoplastic process.
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