Treatment of Febrile Seizures

TREATMENT OF FEBRILE SEIZURES

Convulsions associated with fever often occur in chil-dren 3 months to 5 years of age. Epilepsy later develops in approximately 2 to 3% of children who exhibit one or more such febrile seizures. Most authorities now rec-ommend prophylactic treatment with anticonvulsant drugs only to patients at highest risk for development of epilepsy and for those who have multiple recurrent febrile seizures. Phenobarbital is the usual drug, al-though diazepam is also effective. Phenytoin and carba-mazepine are ineffective, and valproic acid may cause hepatotoxicity in very young patients.