Abstracts

Rationale: To collect patients olden than 60 years at the Kork Epilepsy Centre who underwent epilepsy surgery and to investigate their outcome. Methods: Out of the series of adult patients at the Kork Epilepsy Centre who had undergone epilepsy surgery those were identified who had been at least 60 years of age at the time of surgery. Seizure outcome, postsurgical neuropsychological performance and quality of life were followed. Results: Out of 383 adult patients of the Kork Epilepsy Centre who had undergone resective epilepsy surgery 12 (3.1%) were at least 60 years of age. Mean age was 64.2 years with a range between 60 and 69 years. In 11 cases temporal lobe epilepsy surgery was performed with five right-sided and sic left-sided operations. The remaining operation was a fronto-parietal resection. In 7 patients hippocampal sclerosis with and without additional lesions was apparent. Five patients (42%) became completely seizure-free (Outcome Engel Ia). Three patients (25%) had a marked reduction of seizures or seizures without loss of consciousness. after surgery (Engel IIA). The remaining patients had some improvement (Engel IIIB). Postoperative quality of life declined in 5 cases (42%) with 2 seizure-free patients among them. Complications were more frequent than in younger patients. Conclusions: In line with the literature our data show that epilepsy surgery may be still very successful in elderly patients. However, the seizure outcome tends to be less favourable and complications as well as neuropsychological impairment are more common so that an improvement of quality of life is less predictable even in case of seizure-freedom.