Surgical therapy of temporal lobe seizures

Resection of epileptogenic lesions and pathological studies were performed in all 35 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy, 20 male and 15 female. Their ages ranged from 6 to 48 years with an average of 22 years. Various examinations including CT scan were carried out without any positive finding. EEG showed spike formation in the temporal lobes in all 35 patients. Epilepsy lesions were removed from the right temporal lobe in 22 patients and from the left temporal lobe in 13 patients. Pathological changes were found in all epilepsy lesions by light and electron microscopy. The operative outcomes were seizure-free since discharge in 10 patients (28.5%), seizure-free after some early attacks (34.2%) in 12 patients, seizure-free for 2 or more years and then rare or occasional attacks in 6 patients (17.1%), marked reduction of seizures in 5 patients (14.5%) and moderate or less reduction of seizure tendency in 2 patients (5.7%), with an effective rate of 93%. No death or severe complications did occur.