Long-term follow-up after epilepsy surgery in infancy and early childhood – A prospective population based observational study
Introduction from Dr Markus Reuber, editor-in-chief of Seizure
Seizure 30 has published Long-term follow-up after epilepsy surgery in infancy and early childhood – A prospective population based observational study
Information on outcomes after pediatric epilepsy surgery in infants and toddlers remains limited. The youngest epilepsy patients are often most severely affected, not only due to high seizure burden and medication side effects, but also due to interference with learning and development during the most crucial phases in life. On the upside, successful treatment during this crucial period may also offer functional plasticity. Treating epilepsy early in life with the only known curative approach to date, epilepsy surgery, not only has advantages for seizure outcomes, quality of life and development, but may also provide long-term financial benefits. The current issue provides data from the Swedish Registry collected in a prospective, longitudinal, population based approach showing seizure freedom or improvement in a large percentage of infants and toddlers after surgery [1]. The study not only provides more reliable outcome data in this patient population than other, mostly epilepsy center or research group based data sets. It may also serve as an example for many others to act not only on the charge of providing health care, but to track outcomes in order to counsel patients better, and to learn from outcome data to adjust therapeutic approaches, when needed.
[1] Reinholdson, J., Olsson, I., Edelvik, A., Hallböök, T., Lundgren, J., Rydenhag, B., Malmgren, K., Long-term follow-up after epilepsy surgery in infancy and early childhood – A prospective population based observational study. Seizure 2015; 30: 83-9