title: Management of epilepsy in resource-limited areas: establishing an epilepsy surgery program in Iran.
abstract: Background Of about 40 million people with epilepsy, who live in developing countries, the majority do not receive appropriate treatment. Nonetheless, there are striking disparities among the so-called developing countries, however generally speaking, access to and availability of epilepsy management programs in developing countries are very limited and therefore, the issue of developing epilepsy centers in resource-limited settings in a large scale is very essential. The surgery for epilepsy, including temporal lobotomy, lesionectomy and corpus colostomy, for patients with medically-refractory seizures, defined as failure of adequate trials of two tolerated, appropriately chosen and using antiepileptic drug to achieve sustained freedom, from seizure has been proved to be feasible and cost-effective in developing countries. However, the success of epilepsy surgery depends upon the accurate identification of good surgical candidates based on the available resources and technologies without jeopardizing safety. In the current paper, we will share our experiences of establishing an epilepsy surgery program in Iran, despite all short-comings and limitations and try to provide some answers to those challenges, which helped us establish our program.
authors.affiliation: 1. MD., Associate Professor of Epileptology, Neurosciences Research Center, Department of Neurology, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran, & Jefferson Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, Department of Neurology, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA. aliasadipooya@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Ali A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Asadi-Pooya
authors.affiliation: 2. MD., Neurosciences Research Center, Department of Neurology, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. nahidashjazadeh@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Nahid
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ashjazadeh
authors.affiliation: 3. Department of Neurosurgery, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. bagherih@sums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Ahmad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kamgarpour
authors.affiliation: 4. MD., Neurosciences Research Center, and Department of Neurosurgery, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. m_farazdaghi@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Mousa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Taghipour
authors.affiliation: 5. MD., Department of Neurosurgery, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. sinaloo@sums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Seyed Mohamad
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Rakei
authors.affiliation: 6. MD., Department of Neurology, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. a.kamgarpour@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mohsen
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Farazdaghi
authors.affiliation: 7. MD., Neonatal Research Center, and Department of Pediatrics, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. rakeim@sums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Soroor
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Inaloo
authors.affiliation: 8. MD., Medical Imaging Research Center, and Department of Radiology, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. ali.razmkon@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Mohammad Hadi
authors.initials: MH
authors.lastname: Bagheri
authors.affiliation: 9. MD., Neurosciences Research Center, and Department of Neurosurgery, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. taghipom@sums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Razmkon
authors.affiliation: 10. MD., Department of Radiology, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. zzare@sums.ac.ir.
authors.forename: Zahra
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zare
keywords: Developing country; Epilepsy surgery; Iran; Limited resources