Robotics Makes Intractable Epilepsy Surgery More Accurate

March 11, 2019

A study, published this week in JAMA Neurology, revealed that patients who had the minimally invasive evaluation procedure experienced fewer complications. Those who went on to have brain surgery were more likely to be seizure-free than patients who had the more invasive evaluation procedure.

Researchers reviewed 239 patients with medically intractable epilepsy who had a total of 260 procedures between 2004 and 2017 to locate the source of their seizures and determine their suitability for surgery. All procedures were performed at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center.

Of those 260 procedures, 139 cases involved traditional subdural electrode (SDE) implantation, which includes a large opening of the skull, known as a craniotomy. A sheet of electrodes is placed on the outside of the brain to pinpoint the seizure source before the skull closed back up for an observation period, which usually lasts around a week.