Is open surgery also a cure for epilepsy

  Surgical eradication of the epileptogenic site has been used to treat epilepsy for more than 50 years. With the advent of new surgical techniques and new preoperative site location techniques, more and more epilepsy patients are being treated surgically and the success rate has improved dramatically. Surgery can be used for patients of any age, but not all patients with epilepsy, and not all patients with uncontrollable epilepsy, are suitable for surgical treatment.  In a sense, epilepsy surgery does not guarantee that the patient will be seizure-free or will not need to take antiepileptic medication to control the seizure. However, most patients who undergo epilepsy surgery show some degree of improvement after surgery, and many patients stop having seizures.  Since epilepsy is caused by abnormal neuronal discharges, the problem can be solved by examining the location of the epileptic lesion and then removing the lesion. In addition to this method, it is also possible to cut off the transmission of epileptic discharges. It can also reduce the excitability of the cerebral cortex.  What conditions can be treated surgically 1. Epilepsy caused by intracranial lesions, such as tumors and vascular malformations, may improve after removing the tumor or vascular malformation; 2. Seizures are progressive, that is, the seizure frequency is getting higher, the duration of each seizure is getting longer, and the degree is getting more severe, which seriously affects the patient’s daily life and work; 3. After more than 2 years of systematic and regular drug treatment, there is still no 4. The patient has no serious systemic diseases, can tolerate surgery, and has no contraindications to surgery, such as heart disease and other systemic diseases.  Before surgery, the patient and the surgeon must be very critical about the advantages and disadvantages of surgery, and a series of necessary tests and diagnoses are indispensable before surgery. It is necessary and crucial for accurate localization of the epileptogenic focus and determination of the surgical plan.  The key to the effectiveness of surgical treatment of epilepsy is the preoperative assessment of epilepsy, the precise location of the epileptic focus and the development of the surgical plan. Epilepsy surgery can be divided into three key steps: 1. Precise localization of the epileptic focus before surgery Currently, the development of high technology has solved this problem. The latest technology lies in the use of 128- or 256-conductor EEG combined with MRI/CT 3D image reconstruction software and cortical topography to precisely locate the epileptic foci, transforming the unseen epileptic foci into visible three-dimensional images of the location of the epileptic foci, which can greatly improve the accuracy of localization. The advantages of the fully digital preoperative, intraoperative localization and postoperative treatment evaluation network system are: first, accurate localization; second, 24-hour dynamic EEG monitoring without missing any tiny seizure signal; third, simultaneous acquisition and analysis of EEG signals and digital images on the same screen; fourth, fully digital preamplifier with high anti-interference capability; fifth, 3D image fusion and dipole positioning system can fuse EEG with CT/MRI, eliminating the influence of skull on scalp EEG, with intuitive and precise positioning; sixth, powerful network transmission and networking analysis capability, allowing intraoperative remote consultation. Auxiliary PET-CT, buried electrodes and many other techniques can determine the epileptic lesion.  2, Intraoperative cortical and deep electrode rescanning Surgery can be performed after the epileptic lesion is clearly identified, and intraoperative EEG cortical and deep electrodes are then applied to carpet scan in the brain to mark the epileptic discharge site and identify the minefield to prevent missing.  3. Minimally invasive surgery to remove the lesion or block the epileptic discharge The surgeon can remove the lesion or block the conduction under the microscope according to the marked minefield demining to ensure that the epileptic foci are removed with the least degree of damage to the brain.  Surgical approaches are grouped into three main types: removal (eradication) of tissue from the epileptogenic part of the brain, nerve passages that block outward transmission of seizures, and special types of surgery. The main methods include focal resection, anterior temporal lobectomy, hippocampal resection, cerebral hemisphere resection, corpus callosotomy, multiple subchondral transection, cerebellar stimulation, amygdala destruction, and vagus nerve stimulation. After a long period of surgical treatment, we found that simple focal resection or focal resection combined with other surgeries is the best option for epilepsy treatment.  We have completed nearly 100 cases of surgery for refractory epilepsy each year, and have done a summary analysis of the effect of applying the new technology for epilepsy surgery. 90% of patients have obtained better results, and about 75% of patients can stop seizures or have few seizures. It is believed that the development of this technology will bring hope to more epileptic patients.