Fast Ripples May Improve Epilepsy Surgery Success Rates

Source: Neurology

Summary

Researchers studied the effectiveness of a new epilepsy marker called fast ripples (FRs) in predicting the success of epilepsy surgery. They looked at data from 73 patients who had undergone a specific type of brain monitoring called stereo-EEG (SEEG) before having surgery to remove or ablate brain tissue causing seizures. The study included patients from four different epilepsy centers in Canada, Finland, and Denmark, and aimed to see if removing a certain percentage of FRs during surgery could lead to better seizure control afterward.

The key finding was that patients who had at least 60% of their fast ripples removed during surgery were much more likely to have a good outcome, meaning fewer or no seizures after the procedure. Specifically, 90% of patients with a high FR removal rate achieved good results, compared to only 55% of those with a lower removal rate. The study also found that the presence of spikes (another type of brain activity) did not predict good outcomes as well as FRs did, but a combination of spikes and FRs showed some promise.

This study is important because it suggests that measuring fast ripples could help doctors make better decisions about epilepsy surgery, potentially leading to improved outcomes for patients. However, it’s worth noting that not all patients with lower FR removal rates had poor outcomes, indicating that other factors may also play a role in surgery success. Additionally, the study was retrospective, meaning it looked back at past data, which can have limitations in terms of how results are interpreted.

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