POstoperative Neuropsychological outcome in Patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy in Argentina

SILVIA ODDO, PATRICIA SOLIS, DAMIAN CONSALVO, EDUARDO SEOANAE, BRENDA GIAGANTE, LUCIANA D ALESSIO, SILVIA KOCHEN

EPILEPSY RESEARCH

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2013 p. 155 - 160

0920-1211

The aim of the present study is to compare pre- and postsurgical neuropsychological outcome in individuals suffering from mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE), in order to evaluate prognosis. The selected thirty-five patients had medically mTLE and had undergone an anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL). Neuropsychological evaluation was performed in three different stages: before ATL, 6 months after resection, and a year afterwards. Neuropsychological protocol evaluated attention, verbal memory, visual memory, executive function, language, intelligence, and handedness. There was a significant improvement (P = 0.030) in the group with visual memory deficit after surgery, whereas no changes were observed across patients with verbal memory deficit. No changes were observed in language after surgery. Executive function showed significant improvement 6 months after surgery (P = 0.035). Postoperative outcome of cognitive impairments depends on baseline neuropsychological status of the patients with TLE. In our case series, deficits found in patients with mTLE after ATL did not result in a subjective complaint. 1. Introduction Neuropsychological evaluation is a very important tool to characterize cognitive aspects in patients with epilepsy and to determine the topography of the epileptogenic zone [1?4]. In a previous study conducted by our group [4], patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE) [5] displayed a neuropsychological profile characterized by material-specific verbal/visual episodic memory, executive function, and speech impairment. In most cases, memory deficits correlated with the lesions detected by MRI [4]. These findings were similar to those reported by other authors. A high percentage of patients with TLE syndrome benefit from temporal