OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of ketogenic diet (KD) on the clinical and 
electroencephalogram features in children with pharmacoresistant epileptic 
encephalopathy.
METHOD: Thirty-one children (19 boys, 12 girls) aged 7 months to 7 years (mean 2 
years 5 month) with epilepsy refractory to conventional antiepileptic drugs 
(AEDs) were included in this study. In addition to their original AED treatment, 
the children were assigned to different ketogenic diets based on their age. The 
prospective electro-clinical assessment was performed prior to the KD and then 
one week, one month and again 3 months after the initiation of therapy, 
respectively.
RESULT: The reduction of seizure frequency in 52%, 68% and 71% of all patients 
exceeded 50% one week, one month and three months after KD treatment 
respectively. KD is particularly effective in myoclonic astatic epilepsy (MAE; 
Doose Syndrome) and West syndrome with 100% and 81.25% of the patients having a 
greater than 50% seizure reduction, respectively. After 3 months of KD 
treatment, more than 2/3 patients experienced a reduction in interictal 
epileptiform discharges (IEDs) and improvement in EEG background.
CONCLUSION: The clinical and electroencephalographic improvement confirms that 
KD is beneficial in children with refractory epilepsy.