The NYU Medical Center is reporting that one of its neurosurgeons has published results from a surgical series for epilepsy, done on 25 children with tuberous sclerosis. The surgery, described in the latest issue of of the journal Pediatrics, is a three step procedure:
Two or more years after the operations, 17 of the 25 children were free of seizures or had only mild non-disabling attacks. Six children still experienced more severe non-disabling seizures but the number of such seizures was reduced by more than 90 percent. In two children the number was reduced by 50 percent to 90 percent. Despite the risks of brain surgery, Dr. Weiner and his colleagues report that the multiple surgeries did not cause serious infections or permanent damage to the brain…
Many children with the disease aren’t usually considered candidates for brain surgery because it is difficult to identify which tubers are causing seizures using electroencephalography (EEG), which records electrical activity in the brain through electrodes placed on the scalp. The seizures in these children are spreading so quickly that by the time the electrodes pick up the abnormal nerve firings, it is no longer possible to determine where they originated. Other noninvasive imaging techniques cannot accurately pinpoint where seizures begin.
To overcome this problem, neurosurgeons place electrodes directly on the brain itself, which requires removing a portion of the bony cranium and cutting through the dura mater, the tough fibrous tissue covering the brain. The implanted grid of electrodes, attached to an EEG machine, is used to continuously monitor seizure activity over several days, providing a map for the surgeon to the location where the seizures arise. In the second operation, the surgeon removes the seizure-causing tissue in the brain.
Dr. Weiner takes the operation one step further. He places another set of electrodes in the brain after the second operation in order to locate any other areas that may be causing seizures. So children are again monitored with a grid of electrodes over a period of days, and then undergo a third operation to remove any tissue that still may be causing seizures.
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