QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS UNDERGOING RIGHT OR LEFT TEMPORAL LOBECTOMY
Abstract number :
1.259
Submission category :
Year :
2002
Submission ID :
77
Source :
www.aesnet.org
Presentation date :
12/7/2002 12:00:00 AM
Published date :
Dec 1, 2002, 06:00 AM
Authors :
Judith M. Houghton, Paul Broks, Alan Wing, Gus Baker, Paul Eldridge, Richard Walsh, Hazel Reynders. Department of Clinical Psychology, Birmingham Children[ssquote]s Hospital, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom; Clinical Psychology, University of Pl
RATIONALE: Overall, a range of Quality of Life (QOL) measures have shown resective surgery for epilepsy to improve QOL in patients with intractable epilepsy, with the most significant change occurring in patients who became seizure free. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to the effects of lateralisation. This study explored any differences in QOL for right and left temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) patients, before and after surgery.
METHODS: 17 left (L) TLE and 21 right (R) TLE patients were tested before and, where possible, six months after surgery, using the Epilepsy Surgery Inventory, ESI-55, QOL measure which was designed for patients undergoing epilepsy surgery.
RESULTS: The groups were not significantly different for age, IQ or pre-operative seizure severity/frequency level. They were not significantly different in duration of epilepsy, at p[lt]0.05, although there was a tendency for the left group to have slightly longer duration. Pre-operatively, there were no differences in QOL domains between the LTLE and RTLE groups. In addition, there was no evidence of any relation, for either group, between duration of epilepsy and the QOL measures. Post-operatively, data were available for 12 of the LTLE group and 14 of the RTLE group. Again, there were no significant differences, at p[lt]0.05, between the groups in age, IQ, seizure severity/frequency prior to surgery, or duration. Both groups had favourable seizure outcomes and there were no significant differences between the groups. Considering data from the combined groups, all but one of the QOL domains showed significant gains post-operatively, at p[lt]0.05 or p[lt]0.01, depending on the domain. However, between group analysis showed that these gains were based on improvements in the RTLE group and there were no significant changes in these measures in the LTLE group. As in the pre-operative data, there was no significant relation between duration of epilepsy and QOL.
CONCLUSIONS: In this study, where, on average, duration of epilepsy was relatively long at around 24 years, no relation was found between QOL measures, before or after surgery, and duration of epilepsy. Improvements in QOL scores post-operatively were found to be confined to the RTLE group.
[Supported by: Birmingham Children[ssquote]s Hospital NHS Trust]