Long-Term Successful Outcome of Epilepsy Surgery in Sweden

In the August 23 issue of articles ahead of print in the journal Neurology, Doctors Edelvik and a team of investigators from Sweden present results of an ongoing study that assessed long-term outcomes of epilepsy surgery for the entire nation of Sweden between the years 1995- 2002.

• 62% of all adults who had surgery and 50% of children who had surgery were seizure free, compared to 14% of those adults and 38% of children who did not have surgery.

• 41% of the adults and 44% of children had sustained seizure freedom since surgery.

• More than 30 seizures per month at baseline, long epilepsy duration were negative predictors of success, and a positive MRI was a positive predictor of long-term seizure free outcome.

• Ten years after surgery, 86% of kids and 43% of adults were seizure free.

  • 54% of the people who were seizure free at 10 years had stopped taking anti-seizure medicines (86% of the children and 43% of the adults).