Epilepsy Surgery Gives Hope in Controlling Seizures

This article is based off of a story reported by ABC News and a study conducted by University College London.

A new study was performed which revealed that surgeries on epilepsy might be effective in controlling seizure attacks.

Epilepsy is one of the many illnesses that burden the one having the condition. Attacks can come about anywhere and at any time of the day. However, some epileptics can sense whenever an attack soon turns up that is why medicines for such illness are carried along as always if possible while others deal with the hassle of the condition.

In the study, researchers evaluated the outcome of epilepsy surgery for 615 adults with refractory epilepsy, the type that can't be controlled by medication. The results were that 52 percent of patients were free of major seizures five years after surgery and 47 percent were free of them a decade after surgery. About 30 percent of the study participants no longer needed any medication to control seizures. Those who had temporal lobe surgery were the ones likely to experience the recurrence of the attack compared to those who had surgeries in other parts of the brain.

According to the researchers, the findings of the study give a relief to patients who had attacks uncontrollable by medications while few medical experts argued that in spite of the convenience brought about by the said treatment, a lot of sufferers still opted not to. They added that identifying patients who benefits most and improving the surgery will lead to the success of the innovative treatment. Moreover, those patients who submitted their selves to the procedure still stayed taking the antiepileptic medications although they no longer need them for the reason that their drives are high to test whether they are already seizure-free or not.