Painful Todd’s: Post-ictal painful hemiparesis as an identifier of insular epilepsy

Résumé fourni par la source

• Careful attention to seizure semiology can help to distinguish insular epilepsy. • Painful Todd’s paresis can localise seizure onset to the contralateral insula. • Cortical stimulation confirmed the anatomical origin of this post-ictal phenomenon. The insula can generate seizures which mimic frontal, temporal and parietal epilepsies making electroclinical localization difficult. We report the case of a twenty-one-year-old woman who presented with seizure semiology of a left-sided painful somatosensory aura, progressing to bilateral tonic posturing and complex manual automatisms. She described a painful sensation and weakness affecting her left side following the offset of a seizure, with the pain consistenly outlasting the weakness. This would last from hours to days depending on the severity and duration of the seizure. Stereo-electroencephalography (SEEG) demonstrated seizure onset in the limen of the right insula. Extra-operative stimulation of the insula reproduced the clinical symptoms. She underwent radiofrequency thermocoagulation (RFTC) which has resulted in a significant reduction in seizure frequency. This case report describes a lateralized painful Todd’s phenomenon as a feature of insular epilepsy confirmed by SEEG and extra-operative stimulation.

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