FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ON April 01, 2003
Epilepsy Surgery: Careful Candidate Selection Produces Comparable Results in Developed and Developing Countries
Embargoed for meeting release until 12:00 pm HT, Tues., April 1, 2003
Honolulu, Hawaii -
In developing countries, where epilepsy surgery facilities, technology and expertise are limited, researchers have sought to identify factors most predictive of excellent results among candidates for epilepsy surgery. Findings from research conducted in Kerala, India, are being presented at the American Academy of Neurology Annual Meeting in Honolulu, March 29-April 5, 2003. Among treatment options for epilepsy patients with intractable, temporal lobe seizures, anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL) surgery has yielded nearly a 60 percent success rate in eliminating seizures, according to previously published research (JAMA, June 2001). Medication therapy alone was shown to decrease the frequency and/or intensity of seizures in less than 10 percent of these patients. "By carefully selecting ideal candidates for ATL using an actuarial approach and the Seizure Scoring System, we found that epilepsy surgery programs in developing countries with limited facilities can produce results comparable to those from developed countries," concluded study author Kurupath Radhakrishnan, MD, professor and chair, Department of Neurology, and Head, Epilepsy Program, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology, Trivandrum, Kerala, India. Given the obvious benefits of surgery (after medication has been proven ineffective), researchers from R. Madhvan Nayar Center for Comprehensive Epilepsy Care, Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, Trivandrum, Kerala, South India, audited their epilepsy surgery program to identify factors most predictive of successful outcomes. They studied 243 consecutive patients, selected by noninvasive evaluation, who underwent ATL and had at least two years of post-surgery follow-up.