Abstracts

Rationale: Objectives: Surgical intervention for intractable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) in pediatric population has become an increasingly available option. 70-80% of pediatric patients who underwent TLE surgery are seizure-free after operation. The outcome of cognitive function is as important as seizure-free rate in TLE surgery. The neuropsychological consequences after temporal lobe surgery in adults have been documented in many studies. However, outcome studies concerning cognitive changes after surgery in children with TLE are rare. Therefore, the aim of this study is to evaluate the surgical and neuropsycological outcomes after surgery in children with TLE. Methods: Materials and methods: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of 22 patients who underwent TLE surgery from 1997 to 2011 under the age of 18 years. The preoperative and postoperative neuropsychological tests were done in all patientsResults: Results: The mean age of seizure onset was 95.7 months, and the mean interval from seizure onset to surgery was 67.7 months. Twelve patients underwent left temporal resection. Evaluating their surgical outcomes, all patients belonged to Engel class I at last outpatient clinic. There was no significant difference in full scale IQ, verbal IQ, verbal memory, visual memory and working memory after the surgery. However, the performance IQ (p=0.028) was significantly improved after the surgery. Furthermore, some frontal function test such as Boston naming test, Stroop test and phonetic variant in controlled oral word association test were significantly improved after the surgery.Conclusions: Conclusion: Most of the children with TLE were seizure-free after surgery without significant deterioration of memory, frontal function and verbal IQ. In addition, there is significant improvement of performance IQ and some frontal function test.