
Bailey Moser, age 5
Neurosurgeons at Seattle Children’s Hospital have long suspected that epilepsy patients who have surgery earlier in life have better outcomes than those that wait. Now they have data to confirm their instincts.
In a study recently published in the Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics, lead author Dr. Hillary Shurtleff, neuropsychologist and investigator at Seattle Children’s Research Institute Center for Integrative Brain Research, found that early surgical treatment of focal seizures – those that affect only one area of the brain – in preschool aged children is highly beneficial. The results showed that surgery can reduce the amount of seizures and the number of medications patients are on while helping improve intelligence outcomes. Read full post »