Epilepsy Surgery

Lasting Freedom from Seizures

Less than five percent of epilepsy patients can expect freedom from seizures through medication after they’ve tried a few unsuccessful anti-seizure drugs. By contrast, surgery for many types of epilepsy can help well over 70 percent of those patients achieve complete seizure freedom—and even more will be either seizure-free or significantly improved. Yet, surgery is under-utilized.

At WVU’s Epilepsy Center, we’ve found that patients suffer with medically intractable (difficult to control) seizures for 24 years before they have surgery, which is typical of national figures. But for most patients, we can determine if their epilepsy is difficult to treat within just a few years of seizure onset and through trials of two or three standard anti-seizure drugs.

Patients with persisting and disabling seizures have less chance for a long and healthy life. However, according to one large study (Sperling et al. JAMA. 1996), patients who become seizure-free as a result of surgery reduce their risk of death and injury to that of the general population. Timely surgical intervention for intractable epilepsy can save lives as well as improve the quality of life.

On average, over 52 surgical procedures for epilepsy are performed per year. Average breakdown:

• 32 craniotomies for epilepsy
• 12 vagus nerve stimulators
• 8 intracranial electrode placements