Trends in Thalamic Stereoelectroencephalography Utilization During Phase II Monitoring in North America: A Survey

Thalamic neuromodulation is widely used in epilepsy surgery. However, thalamic sampling in invasive monitoring is not consistently used. We aimed to quantify current trends in thalamic stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG) utilization.

We performed a survey of epilepsy neurosurgeons and neurologists to gauge their attitudes and experience with thalamic SEEG. We contacted all members of the American Society for Stereotactic and Functional Neurosurgery and American Epilepsy Society organizations using a mailing list.

We received 40 responses from centers using SEEG, including 31 neurosurgeons and 9 epileptologists. Among these respondents, 65% (26/40) included thalamic targets in their SEEG plans. The most common clinical rationales were to define the seizure network (22/26, 84.6%) or the high probability of targeted structure being a neuromodulation target (22/26, 84.6%). Over half of the respondents who used thalamic SEEG (15/26, 57.6%) endorsed that the findings informed target selection and feasibility of thalamic neuromodulation. The most commonly implanted thalamic targets included centromedian (23/26) and anterior nucleus of the thalamus (ANT) (22/26), followed by pulvinar (19/26).

Thalamic SEEG is a diagnostic tool that is being increasingly used across epilepsy centers. This may be an important tool to support the paradigm shifts occurring in the surgical management of epilepsy.