Outcome of Epilepsy Surgery

Abstract

Drug-resistant epilepsy is associated with substantial comorbidities and has a major negative impact on quality of life. Current international guidelines recommend that epilepsy surgery be undertaken for suitable candidates, with the aim of resecting the seizure focus and ablating seizures. While the short-term efficacy of epilepsy surgery has been established, the long-term outcomes are less clear as there are relatively few large surgical cohorts with adequate long-term follow-up. Long-term surgical outcome studies have an important role in identifying risk factors for seizure recurrence. The data presented in this session originates from a large (500+) prospectively followed epilepsy surgical cohort with a median of 17 years (IQR 11-23, range 0.7-36 years) regular follow- up. Potential risk factors for post-operative seizure recurrence and issues around long-term outcome studies will be examined. Data such as these are essential for informing selection of surgical candidates, pre-operative counseling, patient decision-making and post-operative management.