Abstracts

Rationale: The Ketogenic diet(KD) is an established, effective nonpharmacologic treatment for intractable childhood epilepsy. It was observed that fasting decrease seizure frequency and the KD was designed to mimic a similar metabolic response. By providing a large quantity of fat and a small quantity of carbohydrate in the diet. Interest in the Ketogenic diet (KD) has been renewed in recent years even though the diet has been existence for over 80 years. Our aim is to report health outcomes after treatment with the ketogenic diet experience at Kuwait. Methods: Eight children under the care of Pediatric Neurology Unit with refractory epilepsy failed medical treatment, were offered MCT ketogenic diet treatment They were all continued a 2 year followup and management. Improvement assessment based on seizure reduction, psychosocial evaluation and neurophysiologica;studies. Results: the group age range between 4m-11y, gender 2 females and 6 males, Nationality 6 kuwaities, 1 lebanese and 1 saudi. They have variable underlying etiologies.the seizures onset at birth in 6 of them the other 2 after neonatal period. There were dramatic seizure control and psychosocial improvement in 5 of the group members. the other 3 were showing seizure reduction more than 50%. Parents satisfaction achieved in all of the cases. One case has hyperlipidemia which was transient and managed by dietary modification. Conclusions: This is the first successful ketogenic experience at Kuwait inspite of the small group size, the reduction of seizures control and psychosocial improvement encourage the continuation of this modality to be offered to other children with refractory epilepsy. The diet has few side effects and is generally well tolerated