Type of Surgery
Information
Last updated: 11/24/2009
Epilepsy affects up to 1% of all people. Approximately 40% of patients are inadequately treated by medications, and so may be surgery candidates. Hemispherectomy is a relatively rare type of epilepsy surgery. The number performed per year in the United...
States is likely less than 100. Hemispherectomy is most often considered in children, whose brains are better able to adapt to the loss of brain matter than adults.
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Other Information
Hemispherectomy is a surgical procedure where one cerebral hemisphere (half of the brain) is removed or disabled. This procedure is used to treat a variety of seizure disorders where the source of the epilepsy is localized to a broad area of a single hemisphere of the brain. It is solely reserved for extreme cases in which the seizures have not responded to medications and other less invasive surgeries.
Other Information
Select comparative data from 1999 to 2006 include a decrease of 14 percent in the number of neurosurgeons in private practice and a decrease of 13 percent in the number of neurosurgeons in solo practice.
From: AANS
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