Brain surgery to treat drug-resistant epilepsy in 2 children

On June 6, Dr. BS Pham Anh Tuan, Head of Neurosurgery Department, Nguyen Tri Phuong Hospital, said: In recent years, the Department of Neurosurgery has implemented techniques or brain surgery to treat epilepsy. such as temporal lobe surgery, hemispherectomy Braintumor cutting, nerve stimulation or deep brain stimulation…

In May 2022, doctors here performed 2 surgeries to remove the corpus callosum, the white matter that connects the two hemispheres of the brain, in the treatment of drug-resistant epilepsy. Method surgery This is often indicated in children with epilepsy called tonic-clonic or bilateral generalized epilepsy. That is, the epileptic vivid area is spread on both sides, not localized.

A typical example is a 6-year-old male patient (living in Ho Chi Minh City) with drug-resistant epilepsy, continuous convulsions, 6-7 attacks per day. Children are always in a state of epileptic seizures.

After surgery to remove the connections between the hemispheres of the brain, children have fewer seizures, and life is almost back to normal.

Children speak better, recover after treating drug-resistant epilepsy by brain surgery method BVCC

Epilepsy is a chronic neurological disease. According to statistics of the Health Organization world (WHO), the prevalence of epilepsy is from 0.5 to 0.8%. At a certain stage, epilepsy patients will become resistant to drug treatments, called epilepsy drug resistance or treatment-resistant epilepsy, accounting for 20%-60%. At this time, brain surgery played an important role in the treatment of epilepsy.

According to TS.BS Pham Anh Tuan, the cause of epilepsy becoming resistant to treatment is mainly related to bad habits in the use of therapeutic drugs: abrupt discontinuation of antiepileptic drugs may be due to the lack of drugs; for thinking the disease is over; increase the dose of the drug from the original, change or add medicine not prescribed by the doctor.

Epilepsy patients must be examined by a neurologist, adhere to the drug treatment regimen and should not have the mentality of “taking too much medication for fear of becoming resistant”. As a result, patients will not achieve the desired quality of life. Patients will experience seizures and convulsions that affect daily activities.

When patients are resistant to treatment, depending on the type of epilepsy, there are different surgical methods or techniques.