SUMMARY The occurrence of post-infarction epilepsy was investigated in 68 patients with angiographically proven internal carotid artery occlusion and in 56 patients with middle cerebral artery occlusion. Epileptic seizures occurred during follow-up in 9% of the carotid artery group and in 21-4% of the middle cerebral artery group. The different incidence of seizures in the two groups was statistically significant. The physiopathological mechanism of the late post-infarction epilepsy is discussed.Epileptic seizures in cerebral arterial occlusive disease have been reported with an incidence varying from 10 to 28%.1-6 Previous studies reported that epileptic attacks are more frequent in internal carotid artery occlusion than in middle cerebral artery occlusion.36 However there is no clear distinction between early seizures which occur during the acute stage of an ischaemic disease because of biochemical reactions,7 and late recurrent seizures which represent a true post-infarction epilepsy. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the occurrence of late post-infarction epilepsy in patients with internal carotid artery or middle cerebral artery occlusion. Patients and methodsClinical data were collected retrospectively on 100 consecutive patients with angiographically proven internal carotid artery occlusion8 and on 70 patients with middle cerebral artery occlusion.9 Of the 100 patients, 93 were hospitalised for stroke ipsilateral to carotid occlusion and seven for ipsilateral transient ischaemic attacks. Of the 70

Recent works have highlighted how many of the major urban agglomerations in Italy are undergoing a new phase of demographic growth. This could be called reurbanization phase according to the theory of spatial cycles and the underlying model of urban life cycle. The occurrence of this phenomenon in a decade when the foreign resident population has tripled could be not only a coincidence. The primary aim of the article is to evaluate the contribution of internal and international migration to the population dynamics of eight Italian urban agglomerations (Turin, Milan, Verona, Bologna, Florence, Rome, Naples and Palermo) during the period 2001–2010. Secondly, the article analyzes the main demographic features of the foreign resident population in those eight urban settings in order to find potential regularities or discontinuities both across and within (core and rings) the selected urban agglomerations. The demographic censuses as well as administrative data from municipal population registers have been used to compute elementary indicators then synthetized by multidimensional data analysis. The results obtained show that in all the urban agglomerations of the Centre-North the population expansion in the last decade is mostly or entirely driven by the foreign component in the centre and periphery alike. On the contrary, growth in the main urban areas located in the Southern region is stagnant despite the contribution (not as relevant anyway) from the foreign population. Regarding the characteristics of foreign population important differential aspects coming out not only across but also\ud within the same urban agglomerations

SUMMARY Out of 233 patients admitted for head trauma during [1977][1978] 93 had a CT scan examination within the first 48 hours. Forty-nine of these had at least one clinical risk factor for post-traumatic epilepsy. Ten of this group developed post-traumatic epilepsy. In all cases early CT scan showed focal brain damage, which was related more significantly to post-traumatic epilepsy than to risk factors.It is necessary to know whether a patient with head trauma should be treated with prophylactic anticonvulsant therapy. 1-3 There have been many studies on large series of civilian and war head trauma with the purpose of establishing early factors predictive of post-traumatic epilepsy.48 With closed head trauma, loss of consciousness for longer than 24 hours, early seizures, focal neurological signs, depressed fracture of the skull and intracranial haematoma, are associated with a higher risk of post-traumatic epilepsy. 58 The aim of the present study was to see whether early CT scan could be predictive of post-traumatic epilepsy. MethodsThe study was performed on the patients admitted for head trauma during 1977-1978 and alive on 1 January1982. We excluded the following cases: (1) patients with previous epilepsy or who were taking antiepileptic drugs for any reason at the time of head trauma, (2) patients who before or after head trauma suffered another possible cause of seizure (stroke, metabolic encephalopathy, another injury to the head), (3) patients discharged with prophylactic anticonvulsant therapy. There were 233 such patients. We interviewed all the patients or their relatives by telephone and whenever they mentioned persisting symptoms we personally questioned the patients or eye-witnesses. When at least one seizure had appeared after the first week from the time of the head trauma, post-traumatic epilepsy was Address for reprint requests: Dr R

Seventy patients who had developed occlusion of the middle cerebral artery confirmed by angiography between 1970 and 1980 were followed up after an average of six years. Fourteen patients had died in the acute stage of the initial stroke. In the remaining 56 patients actuarial analysis showed that the observed incidence of survival for five years was 818% compared with an incidence of 94-1% in a matched normal population. Six patients sustained new strokes, four of which were ipsilateral to the middle cerebral artery occlusion. The observed cumulative incidence of subsequent strokes was 2% a year for the first five years of follow up. Twelve patients developed epileptic seizures.

The authors studied a 26-year-old healthy subject in whom a large arachnoid cyst of the right middle cranial fossa was revealed by chance. As there were no subjective or objective neurological findings, we checked the existence of any neuropsychological impairment. In spite of this, the patient obtained a good general performance level and sometimes the hemisphere containing the cyst performed better, in accordance with the patient’s handedness.