Surgical treatment for intractable epilepsy guided by dipole localization.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the effect of surgical treatment of intractable epilepsy under the guidance of dipole localization (DL).


METHODS
From 1999 to 2001, 240 patients with intractable epilepsy received examination with electroencephalography and their epileptic foci identified by DL before the implementation of operations ranging from epileptogenic focus resection to lobectomy, anterior corpus callosotomy or multiple subpial transection. Follow-up study was conducted in 180 of the patients for over 6 months.


RESULTS
Satisfactory surgical result (seizure free) was achieved in 112 (62.2%) cases, with obvious improvement (seizure reduction by over 75%) in 36 (20%), improvement (seizure reduction by over 50%) in 22 (12.2%) and insignificant improvement in 10 (5.6%) cases. The total effective rate was 94%, with the significant effective rate of 82%. No long-term complications was found in these cases.


CONCLUSIONS
DL is an effective method for localizing epileptogenic focus in surgical treatment of intractable epilepsy, which may improve the conventional outcome of intractable epilepsy.
Xu
Ru-Xiang
RX
Institute of Neurology of PLA  Zhujiang Hospital, First Military Medical University, Guangzhou 510282, China.
Liu
Zhi-Liang
ZL
Zhang
Xin-Wei
XW
Zhou
Gu-Lan
GL
Ke
Yi-Quan
YQ
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D016896:Treatment Outcome