Pediatric Palliative Epilepsy Surgery: A Report From the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium (PERC) Surgery Database
Pediatric Neurology
AUTHORS
Mary Jeno 1 , M Bridget Zimmerman 2 , Sabrina Shandley 3 , Lily Wong-Kisiel 4 , Rani Kaur Singh 5 , Nancy McNamara 6 , Erin Fedak Romanowski 7 , Zachary M Grinspan 8 , Krista Eschbach 9 , Allyson Alexander 10 , Patricia McGoldrick 11 , Steven Wolf 12 , Srishti Nangia 13 , Jeffrey Bolton 14 , Joffre Olaya 15 , Daniel W Shrey 15 , Samir Karia 16 , Cemal Karakas 17 , Priyamvada Tatachar 18 , Adam P Ostendorf 19 , Satyanarayana Gedela 20 , Pradeep Javarayee 21 , Shilpa Reddy 22 , Chad McNair Manuel 23 , Ernesto Gonzalez-Giraldo 24 , Joseph Sullivan 25 , Jason Coryell 26 , Dewi Frances Tonelete Depositario-Cabacar 27 , Jason Scott Hauptman 28 , Debopam Samanta 29 , Dallas Armstrong 30 , Michael Scott Perry 31 , Ahmad Marashly 32 , Michael Ciliberto 33
ABSTRACT
Background: Epilepsy surgery is an underutilized resource for children with drug-resistant epilepsy. Palliative and definitive surgical options can reduce seizure burden and improve quality of life. Palliative epilepsy surgery is often seen as a "last resort" compared to definitive surgical options. We compare patient characteristics between palliative and definitive epilepsy surgical patients and present palliative surgical outcomes from the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium surgical database.
Methods: The Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium Epilepsy Surgery database is a prospective registry of patients aged 0-18 years undergoing evaluation for epilepsy surgery at 20 pediatric epilepsy centers. We included all children with completed surgical therapy characterized as definitive or palliative. Demographics, epilepsy type, age of onset, age at referral, etiology of epilepsy, treatment history, time-to-referral/evaluation, number of failed anti-seizure medications (ASMs), imaging results, type of surgery, and postoperative outcome were acquired.
Results: Six hundred forty patients undergoing epilepsy surgery were identified. Patients undergoing palliative procedures were younger at seizure onset (median: 2.1 vs 4 years, P= 0.0008), failed more ASM trials before referral for presurgical evaluation (P=<0.0001), and had longer duration of epilepsy before referral for surgery (P=<0.0001). During presurgical evaluation, patients undergoing palliative surgery had shorter median duration of video-EEG data collected (P=0.007) but number of cases where ictal data were acquired was similar between groups. The most commonly performed palliative procedure was corpus callosotmy (31%), followed by lobectomy (21%) and neuromodulation (82% responsive neurostimulation vs 18% deep brain stimulation). Palliative patients were further categorized into traditionally palliative procedures vs traditionally definitive procedures. The majority of palliative patients had 50% reduction or better in seizure burden. Seizure free outcomes were significantly higher among those with traditional definitive surgeries, 41% (95% confidence interval: 26% to 57%) compared with traditional palliative surgeries and 9% (95% confidence interval: 2% to 17%). Rate of seizure freedom was 46% at 24 months or greater of follow-up in the traditional definitive group.
Conclusions: Patients receiving palliative epilepsy surgery trialed more ASMs, were referred later after becoming drug resistant, and had longer gaps between drug resistance and epilepsy surgery compared with patients undergoing definitive epilepsy surgery. The extent of surgical evaluation is impacted if surgery is thought to be palliative. A majority of palliative surgery patients achieved >50% seizure reduction at follow-up, both in groups that received traditionally palliative and traditionally definitive surgical procedures. Palliative surgical patients can achieve greater seizure control and should be referred to an epilepsy surgery center promptly after failing two appropriate anti-seizure medications.