Based on the findings of a new study, incomplete resection and epilepsy onset during first year of life were found to be key predictors of late seizure relapse following epilepsy surgery. In this retrospective analysis, around 99 patients who experienced a seizure relapse after 2 years of seizure freedom were matched with controls having long-term seizure freedom. About 2/3rd of the patients relapsed in the five years after surgery and 41% of the patients had >1 seizure had a frequency of less than one seizure per month. Only, 20 of the relapse patients experienced a single seizure. Existence of potentially epileptogenic lesions in the contralateral hemisphere on presurgical MRI and conduction of preoperative PET scans have been found to be key predictors of late seizure relapse following epilepsy surgery. The anterior temporal lobe resection appeared to be associated with recurrence of seizures while incomplete resection contributed to late relapse.
