Background and Aims To study Prevalence of Active Epilepsy in children and Clinical pattern of seizures among epileptics. Classification of epilepsy and epileptic syndromes was done according to ICEES,1989.

Methods All 0–18 year old patients; visiting Hospital during the study period. The ones with Active Epilepsy were studied for clinical pattern of seizures and classification of epilepsy.

Results 4981 patients visited the hospital which included 2893 (58%) males and 2088 (42%) females. Active Epilepsy was found in 41 boys and 19 girls. Crude Prevalence was 12 per 1000. Gender specific prevalence was higher in males 14.1/1000 as compared to females 9.1/1000. Age specific prevalence was maximum 19.2/1000 in age group of 5–10 yrs. Maximum patients (25%) had their seizure debut in First year of life. Secondarily generalized seizures were the most common type of seizures with 20 (33.3%) of patients having it as the main seizure type. Wests syndrome and Lennox Gastaut syndrome were the most common generalized epileptic syndromes. 20% had Idiopathic Epilepsy, 30% probably Symptomatic (earlier Cryptogenic) and 50% had Symptomatic epilepsy. Perinatal asphyxia accounted for 36.7 % of symptomatic epilepsies. 43.3% of patients had neurohandicaps of which CP alone accounted for 53.8%. 31.7 % of the patients were on multiple AEDs, 30% were on Valproate alone at the time of presentation.

Conclusions This study emphasizes the fact that perinatal asphyxia, CNS infections are major contributing factors to childhood epilepsy also leading to a higher percentage of Wests syndromes and LG syndrome which is not the case in western studies.