SEIZURE-FREE OUTCOMEPOSSIBLE AFTER SURGERY FOR CHILDREN WITH INTRACTABLE EPILEPSYS

Dec 07,1998 (Reuters Health)

Two thirds of children and adolescents with intractable epilepsy were seizure-free following surgery, according to a Cleveland clinic study published in the Annals of Neurology for November. Dr. Elaine Wyllie and colleagues looked at outcomes in 136 children and adolescents who underwent surgery for intractable epilepsy between 1990 and 1996. Patients were followed for 1 to 7.5 years following surgery. Seizure-free outcomes were achieved in 68% of children and 69% of adolescents, Dr. Wylie and colleagues report. Patients who underwent temporal resections were significantly more likely to be seizure free than those who underwent extratemporal or multilobar resections. Temporal or frontal resection was associated with infection at the wound site in four cases, Dr. Wyllie's group notes. Transient language disturbance was seen in one patient who underwent temporal resection, and visual field defects and a decrease in verbal memory scores were detected in other patients. Three of the 136 patients died a year or more after surgery. All three experienced persistent seizures; two died during status epilepticus. "These encouraging results far surpass those achieved during controlled trials of new antiepileptic drugs for patients with intractable localization-related epilepsy," the investigators say. "The available data suggest that children should be considered for surgical evaluation at whatever age they manifest with severe, intractable, disabling localization-related epilepsy," the authors conclude.