Congenital
Muscular Dystrophies (CMDs) can be considered as a heterogeneous group of diseases characterized by marked weakness, generalized
hypotonia and joint
contractures. They are divided into pure and classical forms, without ocular and cerebral involvement, and complex forms, which are associated with cerebral abnormalities.
Seizures have rarely been described in the pure forms while they seem to occur more frequently in complex forms. The aim of our study was to evaluate the incidence of seizure in CMD. Herein, the authors describe 16 cases of congenital
muscular dystrophy (CMD) associated with different kinds of epileptic events, in order to study the pathogenic connection between the two clinical manifestations. In all described patients we reviewed the clinical, neurophysiologic, and neuroimaging data to determine any associations with
epilepsy. The patients were divided into two groups: 14 cases with
merosin positive CMD in one group and 2 patients with
Walker Warburg syndrome (WWS) in the second group. In our study we found that in the first group, one benign
myoclonic epilepsy (BME), one benign
febrile convulsions had occurred. Also in one patient, the EEG revealed a moderately high voltage slow background with diffuse sharp waves reaching 300mV in amplitude with no clinical signs. In the
merosin positive CMD patients, the presence of two different epileptic diseases, benign
myoclonic epilepsy (BME) in one and
febrile convulsion with tonic clinic
seizures, may represent a new expression of merosine-positive congenital
muscular disease (PCMD) in which the deficiency of an undiscovered muscular
protein with a cerebral
isoform may be the cause of epileptic events in this group of patients.