Impact of pediatric epilepsy surgery on intellectual efficiency

Epilepsy surgery may be a promising alternative therapy for seizure control in patients with refractory seizures, resistant to medication. Cognitive outcome is another important factor in favor of the surgical decision.

To investigate the correlation between seizure outcome and cognitive outcome after epilepsy surgery in a pediatric population.

A total of 59 pediatric patients were retrospectively assessed with the WISC-III (Full Scale, Verbal Scale and Performance Scale) before and, at least, 6 months after surgery. Patients were divided into two groups according whether or not improvement of seizure control after surgery. Data collected for each child included: epileptic syndrome, etiology, age at epilepsy onset, duration of epilepsy and seizure frequency.

Comparison using a MANOVA test revealed significant differences across pre-operative Full Scale, Verbal Scale and Performance Scale (p = 0.01) with seizure reduction group performing better than no seizure reduction group. Seizure improvement group achieved significant Performance Scale improvement (p = 0.01) and no seizure improvement group showed significant Verbal Scale worsened after surgery (p = 0.01).

Our results suggest that the success of the epilepsy surgery in childhood when the seizure control is achieved may also provide an improvement in the Performance Scale whereas the seizure maintenance may worsen the Verbal Scale.