What are low-grade gliomas and epilepsy?

  Tumors of the central nervous system are an important cause of intractable epilepsy. Domestic and international studies have found that most of these tumors are some low-grade gliomas, mainly located in the cortex, slow-growing, without signs and symptoms of neurological damage except for chronic epilepsy, and the time from seizure to diagnosis of tumor often takes years or decades. The clinical features of low-grade gliomas are mainly seizures, and some of them are refractory. The cause of epilepsy due to low-grade glioma is not due to a single factor of the tumor itself, but rather due to the compression and stimulation of the brain tumor that causes peri-tumor brain cell degeneration and gliosis, resulting in epileptogenic foci that constitute an epileptic focal complex. Therefore, the surgery should strive to remove all the tumor while eliminating or reducing the epileptic symptoms of the patient. Thus, the patient’s symptoms can be improved to the greatest extent, the quality of survival can be improved, and the burden on society can be reduced.  Glioma is the most common primary tumor of the nervous system. In clinical work, astrocytic origin, oligodendrocyte origin and mixed glioma of WHO grade I-II are called low-grade gliomas. Low-grade gliomas account for approximately 15-25% of gliomas. Seizures are the most common symptom of low-grade gliomas, occurring in about two-thirds of patients, with headache and limb weakness in about one-third of patients. Other symptoms such as optic papilledema, intellectual impairment and aphasia are less common.  Epilepsy is a chronic disorder caused by different congenital or acquired factors and is characterized by recurrent seizures caused by sudden excessive cellular discharges accompanied by different clinical and electroencephalographic manifestations. Among them, secondary epilepsy, also known as symptomatic epilepsy, is caused by acute or chronic encephalopathy or organic damage to the brain.  The common causes of secondary epilepsy are congenital disorders, prenatal and perinatal disorders, febrile convulsions, injuries, infections, intracranial tumors and surgical causes, cerebrovascular diseases, systemic and nutritional metabolic diseases, and degenerative and demyelinating disorders, etc. In the field of neurosurgery intracranial tumors, cerebrovascular diseases, infectious diseases and other lesions are common causes and may be the earliest and only clinical manifestations The average incidence is 33%. The occurrence of secondary epilepsy in patients with brain tumors is related to the location, growth rate, and pathological nature of the tumor. Highly differentiated gliomas that grow slowly adjacent to the cerebral cortex, such as oligodendrogliomas, gangliogliomas, and astrocytomas, are prone to secondary epilepsy. The literature reports that most gliomas secondary to intractable epilepsy are highly differentiated gliomas or called low-grade malignant gliomas, accounting for 82%-98%, while low-grade or highly malignant gliomas account for only 2%-18%, with astrocytomas accounting for 24.7%-78% and gangliogliomas accounting for 6%-44.5%. Many studies have found that low-grade gliomas are an important cause of refractory epilepsy, are prevalent in young people, occur mainly in cortical or subcortical areas of the cerebral hemispheres, grow slowly, have mild occupying effects, and have no signs and symptoms of neurological damage other than chronic epilepsy. In the report by yasargil et al, 77% of patients had seizures, 80% of which were limited epilepsy. The incidence of epilepsy was highest in low-grade gliomas with oligodendrogliomas (86.7%), followed by astrocytomas of grade I-II (74.2%) . The incidence of epilepsy is significantly higher in low-grade astrocytomas than in malignant gliomas.  The best treatment option for secondary epilepsy, especially for gliomas with only secondary epileptic manifestations, remains controversial because of its relatively good prognosis. Surgery alone or radiation alone can reduce the frequency of seizures and improve survival, while follow-up is also advocated, and some authors consider radical tumor resection followed by radiation therapy as the best treatment. Chemotherapy is less frequently mentioned in the literature. In today’s increasingly advanced diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, since most gliomas with only secondary epilepsy are highly differentiated, superficially located and adjacent to the cortex, with relatively early clinical manifestations, easy to detect and diagnose at an early stage, and relatively good results of surgical treatment, surgical treatment is still the preferred treatment in terms of controlling epilepsy, improving survival and preventing the transformation of highly differentiated gliomas to hypofractionated ones. Therefore, surgery is still the preferred treatment in terms of controlling epilepsy, improving survival, and preventing the transformation of highly differentiated gliomas to less differentiated ones.