No effect of electrical transcranial direct current stimulation adjunct treatment for epilepsia partialis continua in POLG disease

We report a 15-year-old female with POLG-related mitochondrial disease who developed severe multifocal epilepsia partialis continua, unresponsive to standard anti seizure drug treatment and general anesthesia. Based on an earlier case report, we treated her focal seizures that affected her right upper limb with 20-min sessions of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) at an intensity of 2 mA on each of five consecutive days. The cathode was placed over the left primary motor cortex, the anode over the contralateral orbitofrontal cortex. Surface electromyography (EMG) were recorded 20 min before, 20 min during, and 20 min after four of five tDCS sessions to measure its effect on the muscle jerks. The electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded before and after tDCS to measure the frequency of spikes. Our results showed no statistically or clinically significant reduction of seizures or epileptiform activity using EEG and EMG, with this treatment protocol. To our knowledge, this is only the second time that adjunct tDCS treatment of epileptic seizures has been tried in POLG-related mitochondrial disease. Taken together with the positive findings from the earlier case report, the present study highlights that more data are needed to determine if, and under which parameters, the treatment is effective.