Neuropsychological Outcome After Temporal Lobe Epilepsy Surgery in Patients With Postoperative Seizures following Unsuccessful Surgical Therapy

Abstract

Background: About 20-30% of patients with intractable partial epilepsy have less than favorable outcome after temporal lobectomy. This study explored the neuropsychological outcome of such surgery in this group of patients. Methods: The Medical records of patients with intractable temporal lobe epilepsy who underwent temporal lobectomy were reviewed. All patients had detailed phase I presurgical evaluation and subsequently had surgery. Detailed neuropsychology assessment was carried out in all patients pre-operatively as well as between 3 and 12 months following surgery, 13 patients with Engel class 3 outcome were included in the study. Results: There was no significant difference in the pre and post surgical IQ, verbal and visual-spatial memory performance. However, 76.9% of the patients improved in attention/executive function, 62.6% improved in language function and 88.6% improved in psycho-emotional function. Conclusions: Despite suboptimal epilepsy surgery outcome, this study demonstrates that attention /executive function, language, and psycho-emotional function improved substantially in this sample of patients. J Neurol Res. 2012;2(5):198-203 doi: https://doi.org/10.4021/jnr149w