Consecutive occurrence of benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spike and childhood absence epilepsy: true coexistence or atypical evolution?

We read with great interest the recent review of benign epilepsy with centro-temporal spikes (BECTS) and child-hood absence epilepsy (CAE) by Verrotti et al. (1)BECTS and CAE are the most common epilepsy syndromes in childhood and share certain clinical features: similar age at onset, overall good prognosis, and genetic predispo-sition. Several studies have reported the coexistence of the two syndromes, and recently, Verrotti et al. analyzed 19 cases reported to have clinical features of CAE and BECTS. Among the total 19 cases, three cases had fea-tures of both syndromes contemporarily;three cases expe-rienced absence seizures initially followed by BECTS;and the other 13 cases experienced BECTS at onset and had absence seizures later.