title: Paroxysmal tonic upgaze of childhood: effect of age-of-onset on prognosis.
abstract: Paroxysmal tonic upgaze (PTU) is a syndrome of childhood manifesting as sudden ocular movements with sustained upward deviation of the eyes. We describe the outcome of 6 patients, after a follow-up of 10 years, with onset of the disease in childhood. The aims of this study were to clarify some clinical features of this syndrome and to evaluate the long-term prognosis of these children. In all the patients, tonic upgaze episodes disappeared with time to remission, varying from 1 to 4 y, without any therapy and without any change in psychomotor development, EEG and neuroimaging. Only one child had pathologic interictal EEG with temporo-occipital spikes, which persisted after the offset of the disease.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  From a long-term follow-up, we can confirm the good prognosis of PTU and suggest it is possible to define a distinct syndrome of childhood without any neurological abnormalities and with spontaneous resolution.
authors.affiliation: Department of Paediatrics, University of Chieti, Italy. chiarelli@unich.it
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Verrotti
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Trotta
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blasetti
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Lobefalo
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gallenga
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Chiarell
mesh_terms: D017668:Age of Onset; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D009460:Neurologic Examination; D015835:Ocular Motility Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011379:Prognosis; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D013577:Syndrome