If your medication cannot successfully control your seizures despite repeated trials, you may be an ideal candidate for surgery. MedStar Georgetown University Hospital offers some of the most sophisticated surgical techniques to treat epilepsy worldwide.
While there are some misconceptions about epilepsy surgery, there is no doubt that epilepsy surgery can sometimes be the best treatment for those patients who are drug-resistant to epileptic medications. In fact, if you have tried two or three anti-seizure medications, and they have not helped, you may want to consider pre-surgical monitoring to discover if epilepsy surgery might be right for you.
If our doctors do recommend epilepsy surgery, you should know you are in the best possible hands. Brain surgery is very delicate and complicated work, and our highly skilled surgical team will work hard to ensure the best possible outcome for you.
Types of Epilepsy Surgeries
Epilepsy surgery includes removing or interrupting the dysfunctional flow of electricity in the brain. Your doctors will discuss all the different possibilities with you and your loved ones.
Epilepsy surgery is complex, and being in the best possible hands is critical. At MedStar Georgetown, our neurosurgeons and epilepsy specialists work together to ensure you will have the best possible outcome.
Types of epilepsy surgeries include:
- Temporal lobe resection – This type of surgery removes all or part of the temporal lobe, where many partial seizures originate.
- Extratemporal cortical resection – This type of surgery removes all or part of other lobes of the brain, if seizure activity is traced to those locations.
- Lesion resection – This type of surgery removes any brain lesions that are causing seizure activity. Brain lesions may be tumors or other brain abnormalities that have been detected by MRI during the diagnostic process.
- Corpus callosal section – This type of surgery severs the nerve pathways connecting the two halves of the brain. Successful surgery ensures that any seizure activity originating in one-half of the brain will be unable to spread to the other half of the brain. Corpus callosal section is a surgical procedure that originated in the 1940’s, and is still in use today. At MedStar Georgetown, you will receive the best possible medical care. Our surgical team will explain everything to you and your loved ones every step of the way, from pre-surgery to post-operative care.
