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Why it's done
By Mayo Clinic staff
In most cases, epilepsy surgery can reduce — and sometimes even eliminate — your seizure activity. Repeated epileptic seizures can cause:
- Broken bones or other injuries from falling during a seizure
- Drowning, if the seizure occurs during a bath or swimming
- Brain damage from prolonged seizures
- Sudden death, a rare complication of epilepsy
Because some childhood seizures stop at puberty, doctors often hesitate to recommend surgery for children. But children may have the most to gain from epilepsy surgery because they risk the greatest harm from epileptic seizures. Because their brains are still developing, children are more vulnerable to permanent brain damage. Seizures also interfere with children's social development.
The type of epilepsy surgery you may have depends on the types of seizures you experience, and where they begin in your brain. They include:
- Removing a portion of the brain. The most common type of epilepsy surgery is the removal of the portion of the brain — usually about the size of a golf ball — that's causing the seizures. This type of surgery is highly successful for seizures that start in the temporal lobe, the part of your brain that lies along the sides of your head. Up to 90 percent of those who have this surgery, called temporal lobe resection, either become seizure-free or have a significant reduction in the number of seizures they experience.
- Making incisions to seal off part of the brain. If the portion of the brain that's causing seizures is too vital to remove, surgeons may make a series of cuts to help isolate that section of the brain. This prevents seizures from moving into other parts of the brain. About 70 percent of the people who have this type of epilepsy surgery, called multiple subpial transection, report improvement in seizure control.
- Severing connection between hemispheres. Another type of epilepsy surgery, called a corpus callosotomy, severs the network of neural connections between the right and left halves (hemispheres) of the brain. This surgery is used primarily in children who have severe seizures that start in one hemisphere and spread to the other side. This can help reduce the severity of seizures.
- Removing half the brain. The most radical type of epilepsy surgery removes the outer layer of half the brain. Hemispherectomy is used in children who have seizures because of damage to just one half (hemisphere) of the brain — which occurs in a few rare conditions that are present at birth or that appear in early infancy. The chance of a full recovery is best in younger children.
