New technique for treating uncontrolled epilepsy

April 19, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 05:43 am IST - NEW DELHI

: Doctors at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have for the first time performed a minimally invasive technique using laser to treat three patients suffering from uncontrolled epilepsy. This will be made available to the general public by the end of the year.

Releasing information about the successful intervention here recently, the doctors claimed that the surgical procedure was performed making a small hole in the skull through which a thin fibre-optic cable was introduced into the area causing epilepsy.

Laser was then passed to destroy this area. The surgery required a single stitch and the patients were ready to be discharged the next day.

Three surgeries were performed on April 9 and 10 by Prof P. Sarat Chandra, Professor, Neurosurgery, at AIIMS along with his team under the guidance of Prof. Ashwini Sharan from Thomas Jefferson University, U.S.

“This leading epilepsy neurosurgeon provided the technology transfer in a unique two-day live operative workshop conducted at AIIMS. This is the first time that technology transfer has happened so swiftly from the U.S. to India and will prove to be a sound technology for our patients here,” said Prof. Chandra.

“We are at the brink of revolution for surgical treatment of uncontrolled epilepsy,” said Prof. Sharan. “We are very excited that we could bring this technology to India, as this is the first time this technique was used outside the U.S.”

“The technique is performed through a 3.2 mm hole drilled on the bone in the skull. A thin fibre optic cable is then passed using a stereotactic guidance to the target causing epilepsy. Using unique thermographic images, under MRI guidance the target is then burned using the laser,” noted Prof. Chandra.

He further added that unlike traditional laser, this equipment has a cooling system and every bit of abnormal epileptogenic tissue burned inside the brain is completely visualized and controlled.

Prof. Sharan noted that they had performed this surgery in three patients.

“One was a four-year-old child who had ‘laughing epilepsy’ due to a lesion called hamartoma in a deep seated vital region of brain called hypothalamus.

The other two patients had a condition called mesial temporal sclerosis affecting a structure called hippocampus in the brain,” he said.

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