Abstract: Objective　To understand further clinical characteristics of childhood epilepsy. Methods　Clinical data of 345 children with epilepsy visited to two childhood epilepsy specialist clinics in the city of Xi'an during 6 months were retrospectively analyzed. New classification method was used to summarize the onset type. Results　Among 345 cases of epilepsy, 176 cases were male and 169 cases were female. The age of onset of epilepsy was between 1 month to 18 years old. Children with age of younger than 3 years old were 145 cases (42.0%), 3~6 years old 96 cases (27.8%), 6~12 years old 97 cases (28.1%), and 12~18 years old 7 cases (2.0%). In this study, 159 cases (46.0%) were not classified as epilepsy syndrome, their distribution according to seizure types were as follows: focal seizures were 83 cases (52.2%), generalized seizures 74 (46.5%) and unknown-initially seizures 2 (1.3%) . Of them 186 (53.9%) cases were classified as epilepsy syndrome, including 63 (33.9%) of benign childhood epilepsy with central-temporal spikes, 24 (12.9%) of benign infantile epilepsy, 18 (9.7%) of infantile spasm, 18 (9.7%) of Dravet syndrome and 13 (7.0%) of children with childhood absence epilepsy, their distribution according to seizure types were as follows: focal seizures were 146 (58.6%), generalized seizures were 103 (41.4%). Conclusion　The highest incidence of epilepsy in children was in infancy; focal seizures were higher than generalized seizures; half of the children with epilepsy could be classified as epilepsy syndrome.

Key words: epilepsy;　clinical features;　seizure type;　epilepsy syndrome