Celiac disease, epilepsy, and occipital calcifications: Histopathological study and clinical outcome

Bye et al. in 1993 first described the pathological findings in a patient with celiac disease (CD), bilateral occipital calcifications, and drug-resistant epilepsy who became seizure-free after extensive occipital resection. We report a case with an identical anatomoclinical condition in which surgical removal of the circumscribed calcified lesion was ineffective and epilepsy worsened until a gluten-free diet was started. The poor surgical outcome may have been due to residual epileptogenic tissue or to an unidentified secondary epileptic temporal focus. Our observation confirms the histopathological characteristics of the cerebral lesion in CD and the importance of a gluten-free diet in controlling seizures.