Early surgical approaches in pediatric epilepsy — a systematic review and meta-analysis
Early surgical approaches in pediatric epilepsy — a systematic review and meta-analysis
Childs Nerv Syst. 2023 Mar;39(3):677-688.
DOI: 10.1007/s00381-022-05699-x
Undergoing epilepsy surgery as early as possible might be relted to better outcomes in patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (#DRE). This meta-analysis by Frank et al. (Oct. 2022) compared the outcome of surgical intervention (resective/disconnective surgery or vagus nerve stimulation, #VNS) in 532 DRE patients who either underwent epilepsy surgery before the age of 3 years (early group) or after the age of 3 years (late group).
For the patients who underwent resective/disconnective surgery (n=481), 68% achieved favorable outcomes (95% CI [0.63; 0.73]), 77% in the early group (n=401), and 75% in the late group (n=81, p=0.75).
52% of the patients (n=51) who underwent VNS implantation obtained favorable outcomes, 65% were in the early group (n=20) and 45.1% were in the late group (n=31, p=0.16).
Despite no significant difference regarding the outcome of epilepsy surgery between the early and late intervention groups, the results demonstrate the safety and feasibility of epilepsy surgery for pediatric patients under the age of 3 years.
Link to the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00381-022-05699-x