Epilepsy Surgery

For people whose seizures do not respond to medicines brain surgery may help bring the seizures under control. How does a person with uncontrolled seizures find out if surgery might be helpful?

• Neurostimulation in People with Drug-Resistant Epilepsy: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis from the ILAE Surgical Therapies Commission; Touma L, Dansereau B, Chan AY, et al. Epilepsia. 2022. doi:10.1111/epi.17243

• Cavernoma-related epilepsy: Review and Recommendations for management; Rosenow et al. Epilepsia, 54(12):2025–2035, 2013. PDF

• Diagnostic test utilization in evaluation for resective epilepsy surgery in children - Report from The Task Force for Paediatric Epilepsy Surgery, Commission for Paediatrics, and the Diagnostic Commission (2014) PDF

• Guidelines for Neuroimaging Evaluation of Patients with Uncontrolled Epilepsy Considered for Surgery. Commission on Neuroimaging of the ILAE. Epilepsia, 39( 12): 1375-1376, 1998 PDF

• Revised version of quality guidelines for presurgical epilepsy evaluation and surgical epilepsy therapy: issued by the Austrian, German, and Swiss working group on presurgical epilepsy diagnosis and operative epilepsy treatment. Rosenow et al. Epilepsia, 57(8):1215–1220, 2016 PDF

• International consensus classification of hippocampal sclerosis in temporal lobe epilepsy. A Task Force report from the ILAE Commission on Diagnostic Methods. Blümcke et al. Epilepsia. 2013 Jul;54(7):1315-29 PDF

• Practice guideline summary: Use of fMRI in the presurgical evaluation of patients with epilepsy. Report of the Guideline Development, Dissemination, and Implementation Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology (2017)

• Current standards of neuropsychological assessment in epilepsy surgery centers across Europe. Vogt et al. Epilepsia, 58(3):343–355, 2017. PDF

• Diagnostic utility of invasive EEG for epilepsy surgery: Indications, modalities, and techniques. Jayakar et al, Epilepsia, 57(11):1735–1747, 2016. PDF

• International recommendation for a comprehensive neuropathologic workup of epilepsy surgery brain tissue:  A consensus Task Force report from the ILAE Commission on Diagnostic Methods (2016).  PDF

• The clinicopathologic spectrum of Focal Cortical Dysplasias A consensus classification proposed by an ad hoc task force of the ILAE Diagnostic Methods Commission. Blümcke et al. Epilepsia. 2011 Jan;52(1):158-74. PDF

• Resective epilepsy surgery for drug-resistant focal epilepsy: a review. JAMA 2015 Jan 20;313(3):285-93

• Electrical stimulation of the anterior nucleus of thalamus for treatment of refractory epilepsy. Fisher et al. Epilepsia 2010 May;51(5):899-908. PDF

• Two-year seizure reduction in adults with medically intractable partial onset epilepsy treated with responsive neurostimulation: final results of the RNS System Pivotal trial. Heck et al. Epilepsia 2014 Mar;55(3):432-41. PDF

• The current place of epilepsy surgery. Engel et al. Curr Opin Neurol 2018 Apr;31(2):192-197

• Stereotactic laser amygdalohippocampotomy for mesial temporal lobe epilepsy. Gross et al. Ann Neurol 2018 Mar;83(3):575-587

• Evidence-based guideline update: Vagus nerve stimulation for the treatment of epilepsy: report of the Guideline Development Subcommittee of the American Academy of Neurology. Morris et al. Neurology 2013 Oct 15;81(16):1453-9