Surgical versus medical treatment for refractory epilepsy: outcomes beyond seizure control

Nearly one third of patients with epilepsy become medically intractable, and the likelihood of achieving seizure freedom decreases with each additional medication trial. For appropriately chosen patients, epilepsy surgery affords the opportunity to achieve seizure freedom and potentially wean off medications. Epilepsy surgery, as with medical management, is not without adverse effects; to counsel patients wisely, practitioners need to understand the advantages and disadvantages of both. Randomized controlled trials in temporal lobe epilepsy reveal that epilepsy surgery achieves superior outcome compared to continued medical management. Although seizure freedom is the ultimate goal of any therapy, it represents a single outcome measure among a variety of other domains that affect patient welfare. It is imperative that providers understand the patient variables that affect these outcome measures and how these measures impact each other. Because the data comparing surgical therapy versus medical management for refractory epilepsy are limited, we review the available evidence comparing outcomes beyond seizure freedom including quality of life, cognition, psychosocial function, mortality, and financial costs.