The aim of the current study is to review the clinical features, surgery outcomes and parental satisfaction of children with destructive encephalopathy who underwent epilepsy surgery due to medically intractable seizures.
48 patients who underwent epilepsy surgery from October 2003 to August 2011 at Severance Children’s Hospital have been reviewed. The survey was conducted for functional outcomes and parental satisfaction at least 1 year after the surgery.
Epileptic encephalopathy including Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and infantile spasms was more prevalent than symptomatic focal epilepsy. Hypoxic ischemic injury accounted for most of the underlying etiology of the destructive encephalpathy, followed by central nervous system infection and head trauma. 27 patients (56.3%) underwent resective surgery and 21 patients (43.7%) underwent palliative surgery. 16 patients (33.3%) achieved seizure free and 27 parents (87.5%) reported satisfaction with the outcome of their children’s epilepsy surgery. In addition, 14 parents (77.8 %) whose children were not seizure free reported satisfaction with their children’s improvement in cognitive and behavior issues.
Epilepsy surgery in destructive encephalopathy was effective for controlling seizures. Parents reported satisfaction not only with the surgical outcomes, but also with improvement of cognitive and behavior issues.
Intractable epilepsy can lead the children who are affected to a catastrophic course, because the seizures are so difficult to control and they are strongly linked to mental retardation.
As many other etiological classifications such as malformation of cortical development (MCD), hippocampal sclerosis (HS), tumors and malformation of vascular development, destructive brain lesions including traumatic brain injury, stroke and infections can cause intractable epilepsy. Some of the patients with brain insults suffer not only from intractable seizures, but they also may suffer from the additional global cerebral dysfunction beyond what might be expected from the underlying brain injury alone. Therefore, children with intractable epilepsy caused by destructive encephalopathy can be surgical candidates based on the removal or disconnection of destructive lesions which suspected to be “epileptogenic” after brain insult.
The aim of the current study was to evaluate the clinical features and the seizure outcome in pediatric intractable epilepsy surgery cases of destructive encephalopathy, which were not frequently discussed etiological candidates of epilepsy surgery in children previously. Furthermore, the important changes of the functional outcome and parental satisfaction were considered and assessed in pediatric epilepsy surgery cases.
48 patients who underwent epilepsy surgery for the treatment of intractable epilepsy with destructive brain lesions at the Severance Children’s Hospital in Seoul, Korea, from October 2003 to August 2011 were indentified. We included the patients whose preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings were compatible with destructive lesions, and we followed up our patients at least 1 year after surgery. One mortality due to immediate postoperative complication was excluded.
48 patients’ information were analyzed; the medical records for demographic data, insult history, presurgical findings, postoperative electroencephalogram (EEG) results and the seizure outcomes. Seizure outcomes were classified according to Engel class; Engel class I-absence of seizures or presence of auras only, or presence of seizures only during drug withdrawal; class II-rare disabling seizures or nocturnal seizures only; class III-worthwhile improvement; and class IV-no improvement.
Intellecutal function was measured using an age-appropriated Wechsler test (K-WISC, K-WAIS) and was presented by verbal IQ (VIQ), performance IQ (PIQ) and full-scale IQ (FSIQ) tests. Infants and severely delayed patients were assessed by the social maturation scale (SMS) composed of the social age (SA) and social quotient (SQ) using Bayley scales.
The functional outcome of the 31 patients and their parental satisfactions by telephone interview, at least 1 year after the surgery, was obtained. The functional outcome in cognition/behavior, motor skills of the patient and parental satisfaction to surgery were scored and classified into five groups: Much improved/very satisfied, improved/satiesfied, no change/with reservation, worsened/unsatisfied and much worse/regret. The postoperative outcome in aspects of the seizure outcome, functional outcome and overall satisfaction of parents were also analyzed .
Statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 18.0 software and group differences in demographic and presurgical factors were tested using independent sample t test, paried t test, Pearson chi-square and Fisher exact tests at the 0.05 level.
Clinical features and demographics were shown in
According to results of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lesions, half of the patients had bilateral abnormalities and other half patients had lesions confined to one hemisphere, further divided by 22 multifocal lesions and 2 focal lesions.
As shown in
16 patients (33.3%) were categorized as Engel class I, 9 patients (18.8%) were Engel class II, 10 were Engel class III (20.8), and 13 were Engel class IV (27.1%). 42 patients had also categorized as ‘overall improvement’, which was from Engel Class I to IVa.
Among 35 patients classified as epileptic encephalopathy (EE) such as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) and infantile spasms, 13 patients (37.1%) achieved an Engel class I outcome. Resective surgery showed relatively higher proportion of Engel class I outcomes compared to palliative surgery procedures. Even considering the overall improvement group, there was a significant difference (26 patients (96.3%) of resective surgery,16 (76.2%) palliative surgery,
As shown in
Telephone interview showed that 27 parents out of 31 (87.1%) represented overall satisfaction to surgery. All parents of the seizure free group were satisfied with the surgery, and among the remaining 18 parents of seizure present children, 14 (77.8%) were satisfied with the surgery due to improvement in alertness, hyperactivity, concentration, facial expression and responsiveness. And in view of surgical procedures, the satisfaction rate was 83.3% in resective surgery and 92.3% in palliative surgery.
Engel class I’s (15 patients, 31.2%) outcome of the current study was a somewhat lower percentage compared to recently reported other surgical series,
Epilepsy surgery is not indicated for patients with severe diffuse bilateral cortical damage caused by HIE, but there is an increasing interest and number of children who benefit from epilepsy surgery from post HIE damage such as porencephaliccysts and watershed lesions.
The extent of the brain lesions were different in each patient from focal lesions, multifocal lesions limited in one hemisphere, or bilateral lesions such as periventricular leukomalacia (PVL). Functional hemispherectomy or mutilobar resections were often conducted to multifocal lesions in one hemisphere, palliative procedures for bilateral lesions such as PVL, although curative surgeries were commonly conducted for other structural focal epilepsy. According to the extended location of the lesion, the most appropriate surgical procedure was carefully chosen for each patient.
Destructive brain lesions in pediatrics can be presented by intractable epilepsy. 35 of the patients presented with LGS or infantile spasms, the well known childhood onset epileptic encephalopathy. All had mental retardation as presented by a low IQ score (lower than 70) or DQ (developmental quotient) score (lower than 100) before surgery. This is, as mentiond by Freitag and Tuxhorn,
In the current study, quantitative changes in cognition or development after the surgery assessed by formal neurophsychological tests (IQ or SQ) showed no significant differences in even Engel class I outcome patients like other studies.
Limitations of the current study were a small sample size and an inability to telephone survey for all patients. Another limitation was that we had not used the measurements such as the Quality of Life of Children with Epilepsy (QOLCE)
The authors have no financial conflicts of interest. We have read the Journal’s position on issues involved in ethical publication and affirm that this report is consistent with those guidelines.
Characteristics of patients
Parameter (n=48) | Number of patients (%) | |
---|---|---|
Etiology | Hypoxic ischemic brain injury (n=32) | 32 (66.7) |
Diffuse hypoxic ischemic injury | 17 | |
Periventricular leukomalacia | 7 | |
Hemorrhagic infarction | 5 | |
Focal ischemic infarction | 3 | |
Central nervous system infection (n=12) | 12 (25.0) | |
Encephalitis | 9 | |
Meningitis | 3 | |
Head trauma (n=4) | 4 (8.3) | |
Epilepsy classification | Lennox-gastaut syndrome | 33 (68.8) |
Symptomatic focal epilepsy | 13 (27.1) | |
Infantile spasms | 2 (4.1) | |
Surgical procedure | Corpus callosotomy | 21 (43.8) |
Functional hemispherectomy | 15 (31.3) | |
Multilobar resection | 9 (18.8) | |
Cortisectomy | 2 (4.2) | |
Unilobar resection | 1 (2.1) | |
Mental retardation | Before epilepsy onset | 22 (43.8) |
Before surgery | 48 (100.0) | |
Past treatment history | History of Ketogenic diet | 21 (43.8) |
History of Steroid therapy | 5 (10.4) | |
Median (range: 25–75p) | ||
AEDs prior to surgery | 4,0 (3.0–4.8) | |
Age at insult (yr) | 0.4 (0.0–1.7) | |
Age at seizure onset (yr) | 2.1 (1.0–4.6) | |
Age at surgery (yr) | 9.1 (4.9–13.3) | |
Lead time from insult to epilepsy (yr) | 0.8 (0.0–3.0) | |
Epilepsy duration (yr) | 5.1 (2.2–8.1) | |
Follow up duration (yr) | 2.7 (1.8–4.5) |
Seizure outcome according to surgical procedures
No. of seizure free (%) |
No. of overall improvement (%) | ||
---|---|---|---|
Corpus callosotomy(n=21) | 6 (28.6) | 16 (76.2) | |
Functional hemispherectomy (n=15) | 7 (46.7) | 15 (100.0) | |
Lobectomy (n=10) | Multilobar (n=9) | 2 (22.2) | 8 (88.9) |
Unilobar (n=1) | 0 (0.0) | 1 (100.0) | |
Cortisectomy (n=2) | 1 (50.5) | 2 (100.0) |
Statistics were evaluated by linear by linear association.
Neuropsychological test
Preoperative | Postoperative | ||
---|---|---|---|
Seizure free (n=4) | |||
FSIQ | 46.5 (38.0–54.3) | 35.0 (29.0–46.3) | 0.068 |
VIQ | 51.5 (49.5–59.5) | 44.5 (35.8–63.0) | 0.273 |
PIQ | 47.5 (35.8–54.0) | 35.0 (31.3–39.5) | 0.068 |
Seizure not free (n=4) | |||
FSIQ | 37.0 (30.0–74.8) | 34.5 (23.0–42.3) | 0.285 |
VIQ | 46.5 (39.0–76.5) | 41.5 (29.0–51.0) | 0.285 |
PIQ | 36.0 (32.5–77.8) | 36.0 (29.8–49.0) | 0.285 |
Social Maturation Scale (n=12) | |||
Seizure free (n=6) | |||
SA | 2.9 (2.3–3.4) | 3.9 (3.0–5.8) | 0.028 |
SQ | 50.8 (29.0–73.0) | 50.3 (27.3–79.6) | 0.463 |
Seizure not free (n=6) | |||
SA | 5.33 (0.8–11.0) | 4.4 (1.4–7.1) | 0.345 |
SQ | 49.3 (28.8–75.1) | 34.0 (25.9–50.0) | 0.116 |
Statistical significance was evaluated by Wilcoxon signed rank test.
FSIQ, Full Scale IQ; VIQ, Verbal IQ; PIQ, Performance IQ; SA, social age; SQ, social quotient.
Wechsler test=KISC-III, K-WPPSI, K-WAIS.
Median (range, 25p–75p).
Postoperative survey
Much improved/Very satisfied | Improved/Satisfied | No change/With reservation | Worse/Unsatisfied | Much worse/Regret | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Resective surgery (n=18) | |||||
Cognition/Behaviors | 10 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 |
Motor skills | 2 | 1 | 5 | 7 | 3 |
Satisfaction to surgery | 9 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 2 |
Palliative surgery (n=13) | |||||
Cognition/Behaviors | 4 | 4 | 4 | 0 | 1 |
Motor skills | 0 | 3 | 10 | 0 | 0 |
Satisfaction to surgery | 5 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1 |