Types of Epilepsy Treated With Epilepsy Surgery
There are three broad categories of
epilepsy that can be treated successfully with epilepsy surgery. These include:
- Focal seizures
- Seizures that begin as focal seizures before spreading to the rest of the brain
- Unilateral multifocal epilepsy with infantile hemiplegia (such as Rasmussen's encephalitis).
Doctors generally recommend epilepsy surgery only after patients have tried two or three different medications without success, or if there is an identifiable brain lesion -- a damaged or dysfunctional area -- believed to cause the seizures.
Expectations for Epilepsy Surgery
A study published in 2000 compared epilepsy surgery to an additional year of treatment with antiepileptic drugs in people with longstanding temporal lobe epilepsy. The results showed that 64 percent of patients receiving epilepsy surgery became
seizure-free, compared to 8 percent of those who continued with medication only.
Because of this study and other evidence, epilepsy surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy is now recommended when antiepileptic drugs are not effective. However, there is not guidance on how long seizures should occur, how severe they should be, or how many drugs should be tried before surgery is considered. A nationwide study is now under way to determine how soon surgery for temporal lobe epilepsy should be performed.
If a person is considered a good candidate for epilepsy surgery and has seizures that cannot be controlled with available medication, experts generally agree that epilepsy surgery should be performed as early as possible.
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