Interstitial laser ablation for epilepsy: beauty lies in the eye of the beholder

MRI-guided laser interstitial thermal therapy (MRgLITT) is among the most promising approaches for the surgical treatment of medically refractory epilepsy. It differs from other current interventions in its combination of being minimally invasive with an immediate effect, having a good safety profile and allowing precise three-dimensional targeting. To date, however, it is not clear if we can localise an epileptogenic zone well enough to take full advantage of the targeting of MRgLITT. In their JNNP paper, Youngerman et al provide an update on outcomes from a cohort of patients who underwent MRgLITT for mesial temporal lobe epilepsy.1 2 The cohort now consists of 277 patients from 11 epilepsy centres in the USA. This might be the last large outcome data before the release of results from the pivotal prospective SLATE trial (NCT02844465) asking whether MRgLITT is appropriate for the treatment of epilepsy associated with mesial...
Source: Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry - Category: Neurosurgery Authors: Tags: Editorial Source Type: research