Blog #155: Robot-assisted brain surgery at Canada’s London Health Sciences Centre provides hope for people living with epilepsy.

 

Since 2011, my monthly epilepsy blog followers (LanceFogan.com) have reviewed several blogs touching on the efficacy of epilepsy surgery on improving epilepsy—often cures result. Specialized epilepsy neurosurgical centers evaluate each candidate and if the seizure focus can be localized with various test procedures, and if it is determined that surgery on that focus would be safe without debilitating side-effects, e.g., speech problems, motor, sensory or visual complicating deficits, highly successful outcomes are routine.

Review my most recent epilepsy blogs on epilepsy surgery: blog #145 Aug. 25, ’22; blog#121, Aug 25, ’20, and blog #89, Dec 26, ’17.

 Bryan Bicknell, the CTV News Reporter, on June 23, 2023, reported that a neurosurgeon at the London Health Sciences Centre in London, Ontario, Canada, became the first to perform deep brain stimulation with a robot!

Neurosurgeon, Dr. Jonathan Lau, reported that all three of these robot procedures he has done since January 2023, have been successful. All went home a day or two after the procedure. He likens it to implanting a pacemaker for a bad heart.

“This is the same idea. People with epilepsy have a predisposition to having seizures, so they have irregular rhythms in their brain in terms of electrical activity. So, the same principle applies. An irregular rhythm there, so we put electrodes in the appropriate spots with the aid of the robot which is less intrusive than surgery. The electrodes can restore function and prevent seizures.” Lau said it was almost by accident that he and his team at University Hospital decided to employ it for this specific use.

“It was actually a fairly routine day when we decided, ‘Okay, because we don’t have the other options let’s use the robot.’ So, we inquired a little bit and it turns out nobody had done this for this indication in Canada,” he explained.

Epilepsy is one of the most common neurological disorders in the world, affecting one percent of the population, more than 300,000 Canadians. And not only is there a stigma around the disease itself, but Lau said there’s also a stigma attached to the very surgery to improve life for those living with it. Brain surgery can seem scary, but Lau said new technologies actually make it safer.

“With things like robotic assistance, with improvements in imaging, the risks of the procedure are much, much lower, and it’s just raising that awareness,” he said. Lau added that robot-assisted deep brain stimulation surgery is a treatment for some patients who would not otherwise be considered for surgery. 

This is another road you might consider if your epilepsy is uncontrollable.

 

Lance Fogan, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Neurology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. His hard-hitting emotional family medical drama, “DINGS, is told from a mother’s point of view. “DINGS” is his first novel. Aside from acclamation on internet bookstore sites, U.S. Report of Books, and the Hollywood Book Review, DINGS has been advertised in recent New York Times Book Reviews, the Los Angeles Times Calendar section and Publishers Weekly. DINGS teaches epilepsy and is now available in eBook, audiobook, soft and hard cover editions.