RT Journal
A1 POLLACK MA
T1 COntinuous phenobarbital treatment after a 'simple febrile convulsion'-reply
JF American Journal of Diseases of Children
JO American Journal of Diseases of Children
YR 1979
FD February 1
VO 133
IS 2
SP 222
OP 222
DO 10.1001/archpedi.1979.02130020113030
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.1979.02130020113030
AB In Reply.—Livingston and his colleagues indicate several areas of disagreement with my views on febrile convulsions. Some of their arguments can only be explained by failure to read my article carefully.I did not state that febrile convulsions cause epilepsy or suggest that treatment of febrile convulsions precludes the development of epilepsy in later years. In fact, I concluded that existing studies of temporal lobe epilepsy following febrile seizures do not bear directly on the treatment of children with brief, generalized febrile convulsions. I also did not conclude that brief, generalized febrile convulsions reflect a predisposition to febrile status epilepticus. In discussing the study of Aicardi and Chevrie,1 which is also cited by Livingston and his colleagues, I wrote that the authors did not indicate whether a brief, generalized febrile convulsion increases the risk of status epilepticus during subsequent febrile illnesses. Since status epilepticus does have a high