Surgical Outcome in Refractory Epilepsy due to Mesial Temporal Sclerosis: Analyses of 56 Consecutive Patients

Epilepsy is a worldwide health concern, accounting for 1% of the global burden of disease, equivalent to lung cancer in men and breast cancer in women . Approximately 20% to 40% of patients these patients who have medically intractable epilepsy account for 80% of the cost of treatment of epilepsy . Temporal lobe epilepsy is the commonest form of partial epilepsy, and is amenable to surgical management. However, in India there exists a wide gap between the case load and surgical management. In India, with over 500,000 potential epilepsy surgery candidates, not more than 300 epilepsy surgeries per year are being undertaken today. Thus, enormous surgical treatment gap exists. The surgical outcome may vary from complete cure (cessation of all anti-epileptic drugs) to complete control either on same number of pre surgical drugs in lower doses or less number of drugs. The success of temporal epilepsy surgery depends on correct selection of candidates and epileptic zones. The temporal lobe epilepsy surgery is not without potential drawbacks which include verbal, visual and memory dysfunction. This study is our endeavour to observe the outcomes following surgery for mesial temporal sclerosis following a standardised preoperative workup and surgical technique.