ReviewOntario health technology assessment series2012
Epilepsy surgery: an evidence summary.
Review in Ontario health technology assessment series, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Electrical stimulation for drug-resistant epilepsy: an evidence-based analysis.Ontario health technology assessment series · 2013Pooled it
- Clinician knowledge gaps in epilepsy surgery: An international survey across 18 countries or regions in Asia-Oceania.Epilepsia · 2026Article
- Focal Cooling for Drug-Resistant Epilepsy: A Review.JAMA neurology · 2022Review
- A multi-head self-attention deep learning approach for detection and recommendation of neuromagnetic high frequency oscillations in epilepsy.Frontiers in neuroinformatics · 2022Article
- Transformer-Based High-Frequency Oscillation Signal Detection on Magnetoencephalography From Epileptic Patients.Frontiers in molecular biosciences · 2022Article
- A Stacked Sparse Autoencoder-Based Detector for Automatic Identification of Neuromagnetic High Frequency Oscillations in Epilepsy.IEEE transactions on medical imaging · 2018Article
- Rate and complications of adult epilepsy surgery in North America: Analysis of multiple databases.Epilepsy research · 2016Article
- Bridging the Gap between Evidence and Practice for Adults with Medically Refractory Temporal Lobe Epilepsy: Is a Change in Funding Policy Needed to Stimulate a Shift in Practice?Epilepsy research and treatment · 2015Review
- Economics of epilepsy surgery.Annals of Indian Academy of Neurology · 2014Article
- Safety, feasibility and complications during resective pediatric epilepsy surgery: a retrospective analysis.BMC anesthesiology · 2014Article
- Epilepsy surgery series: a study of 502 consecutive patients from a developing country.Epilepsy research and treatment · 2014Article
- Regenerative medicine for epilepsy: from basic research to clinical application.International journal of molecular sciences · 2013Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe Medical Advisory Secretariat, the predecessor of Health Quality Ontario, published an evidence-based analysis on functional brain imaging. This analysis highlighted the low uptake of epilepsy surgery in Ontario and internationally.
objectiveThe objective of this analysis was to review the effectiveness of epilepsy surgery at reducing seizure frequency, as well as the safety of epilepsy surgery. DATA SOURCES: The literature search included studies published between January 1995 and March 2012. Search terms included epilepsy, surgery, resection, safety, and complications. REVIEW
methodsStudies were eligible for inclusion if they included at least 20 patients undergoing surgery; had a comparison group of patients with epilepsy who were not undergoing surgery; and reported follow-up periods of at least 1 year. Outcomes of interest included seizure frequency and complications associated with surgery.
resultsSix systematic reviews reported pooled seizure-free rates that ranged from 43% to 75%. Two randomized controlled trials compared the effectiveness of epilepsy surgery with no surgery in patients with drug-refractory epilepsy. Both trials reported significant improvements in the seizure frequency in the surgery group compared with the nonsurgery group. Eight retrospective cohort studies reported on the safety of epilepsy surgery. Of the 2,725 patients included in these studies, there were 3 deaths reportedly related to surgery. Other complications included hemiparesis, infection, and visual field defects. The studies had long follow-up periods ranging from a mean of 2 to 7 years. LIMITATIONS: The most recent randomized controlled trial was stopped early due to slow enrolment rates. Thus results need to be interpreted with caution.
conclusionsThere is high quality evidence that epilepsy surgery is effective at reducing seizure frequency. Two randomized controlled trials compared surgery to no surgery in patients with drug-refractory epilepsy. Both demonstrated significant reductions in seizure frequency. There are some complications associated with epilepsy surgery. In the published literature identified, we observed a 0.1% mortality rate associated with the surgery.
Indexed as
Identifiers
23074427PMC3428719What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.