Are you a candidate for surgery?
If anticonvulsant medications have failed to control your epilepsy, or you are experiencing intolerable side effects from anticonvulsants, you may be a candidate for epilepsy surgery. Please ask your doctor if surgery is an option for you.
The process to decide whether you are a candidate for surgery involves a thorough medical history and physical examination, including brain wave monitoring and other tests. The goal is to identify a specific source of seizures in your brain that can be safely removed without affecting important brain controlled functions.
Advances in epilepsy surgery
Remarkable advances in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy have been made in recent years. Elaborate electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring with simultaneous videotaping; refined neuroradiologic techniques, including magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), positron emission tomography (PET) and single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT); and sophisticated implantable electrodes help to pinpoint the source of seizures. Subspecialty trained physicians, improved anesthetic agents, intraoperative monitoring and innovative surgical techniques, such as awake craniotomy, have combined to make surgery a treatment option for many adults and children with medically intractable epilepsy — the 30 percent of epilepsy patients for whom drug therapy is either ineffective or produces intolerable side effects.
Successful epilepsy surgery
The success of epilepsy surgery is measured in terms of the operation’s impact on seizure control and improvement in quality of life. Successful surgery eliminates seizures in the majority of cases. In a minority of cases, seizure frequency is markedly reduced.
Ten years after epilepsy surgery, 68 percent of Cleveland Clinic patients who have undergone temporal lobe resection (removal of tissue) — the most common type of epilepsy surgery — continue to be seizure free. Significant improvement in lifestyle and social interactions also may occur. For some patients, anticonvulsant medications may be reduced or discontinued by a neurologist following a thorough evaluation of seizure status one to three years after surgery. Some patients may continue to experience auras (warning signs and sensations) and require long term maintenance medication(s) in order to achieve complete seizure control.
Download the complete Epilepsy Surgery Guide.
