Treatment of Epilepsy With Surgery Recovery Guarantee More

HEALTH WORLD: Handling patients with epilepsy (seizures or epilepsy) was mostly done with drug therapy. While surgery is still considered too extreme to be done. But treatment through the operation turned out to better ensure the long-term recovery.

As a new study finds nearly half of those who have undergone surgery or surgery for epilepsy, remain free of seizures until 10 years later.

Currently most of the management of patients with epilepsy is drug therapy. However, if the drug is not able to control epileptic seizures for many years. Only later after the patients were advised to undergo surgery.

Researchers say that some patients with focal epilepsy must be eligible to undergo the surgical procedure more quickly. Focal Epilepsy is the most common form of seizure disorder.

"Handling of neurosurgical patients with epilepsy or neurosurgery, used for the treatment of focal epilepsy that can not respond to medication. Neurosurgical can allow the cessation of episodes of seizures in epilepsy patients," said study leader Dr. John Duncan, who is also a professor of neurology at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery and Imperial College London, England, as quoted from MSN Health, Friday (10/14/2011).

As many as 82 percent of people who have undergone neurosurgical have felt a great benefit, ie never having seizures again. Based on the results of these studies the treatment of epilepsy patients with surgical procedures should be considered when 2-3 drugs have failed to control seizures.

"Some people with epilepsy think that taking drugs while pregnant are at increased risk of birth defects in babies. Given the severity of side effects of some anti-seizure drug. So that particular patient would be better if made the surgical procedure as an alternative treatment," the researchers said.

The study results were published in The Lancet issue of October 15, 2011. The research team sees long-term outcomes of 615 adults who underwent surgical procedures for epilepsy at the National Hospital in the year 1990-2008. With an average of the observed patients had suffered from seizures for 20 years before surgery.

"Five years post-surgery, 52 percent of these patients remained free of seizures. And after 10 years, 47 percent of these patients remained free of seizures. But over the long term, 11 percent of these patients had simple partial seizures. Simple partial seizures do not involve loss of consciousness but it seems to affect the chances of recovery, "said the researchers.

Surgical procedure for epilepsy is to cut a small portion of the brain where the seizures usually begins. Brain regions most often cut when undergoing surgery for epilepsy is temporal lobe area.

The procedure is known as the anterior temporal resection. But depending on the location of the seizure focus as determined by the physician through an MRI and other tests, epilepsy surgery can be performed on other areas of the brain.

"The operation usually does not interfere with temporal lobe memory or mental ability of a patient. Surgical outside the temporal lobe called the extratemporal cortical resection," said Dr. Duncan.

The researchers found that patients who underwent extratemporal cortical resection as much as 2 times more likely to have seizures again. In addition, patients who experienced simple partial seizures for 2 years after the operation will be 2.5 times more likely to have seizures that affect consciousness. Patients who have long been free of seizures, the less likely to experience recurrence.

"These studies have shown that, epilepsy surgery has been very effective in nearly 50 percent of epilepsy patients without worsening of the condition after surgery. The study is important because the observed safety and effectiveness of surgical therapy for epilepsy in the clinical environment," said the researcher.