Predictors of outcome of surgery in adults with mesial lesional temporal lobe epilepsy

BackgroundWe report the clinical characteristics and outcome of epilepsy surgery in adult patients with intractable epilepsy due to isolated lesional temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE).MethodsRetrospective analysis of clinical and outcome characteristics in 47 consecutive adult patients with intractable epilepsy due to isolated lesional TLE who underwent epilepsy surgery from November 2009 to January 2015 was done to predictors of outcome.ResultsThe mean age at surgery of the study population was 30.74 ± 10.85 years with 20 (43.5%) women. While the average age at onset of epilepsy was 20.12 ± 12.52 years, average duration of epilepsy was 10.78 ± 7.96 years. Favourable Engels outcome was observed in 39 (84.8%) of the patients. Findings on histopathology reported glioma in 24 (52.0%) of the patients. On comparing patients with favourable outcome (n = 39) with those with unfavourable outcome (n = 7), age at surgery was significantly higher in patients with unfavourable outcome (40.14 ± 11.69 years vs 29.05 ± 9.92 years; p = 0.011). Higher percentage of patients with unfavourable outcome scored poor on pre-surgical IQ tests (42.9% vs 7.7%; p = 0.037). On further analysis for predictors of outcome, age at surgery (β = 0.858; 95% CI 0.738–0.997) significantly predicts outcome (β = 1.166; 95% CI 0.931–1.461; p = 0.182), whereas pre-surgical poor IQ showed a trend towards being associated with unfavourable outcome (β = 0.079; 95% CI 0.005–1.287; p = 0.075).ConclusionSurgery for intractable epilepsy due to isolated lesional TLE has favourable outcome in vast majority (84.8%) of carefully selected patients. Age at surgery predicts outcome in these patients.