After that's done, we sit down with the family, and we discuss the potential risks and benefits, what we think will be expected with this surgical approach, and the family really makes a decision about whether they want to go ahead.
ANNOUNCER: If an agreement is reached that surgery will be beneficial to the child, there are a variety of surgical techniques currently being performed.
HOWARD WEINER, MD: The traditional approaches, brain surgery or craniotomy, where the brain is actually removed, the seizure focus is identified using a variety of techniques, and if this can be done safely, this area of seizure focus is removed safely.
There are also techniques that involve neurostimulation, most commonly known as vagal nerve stimulation, which is a device that is implanted around the vagus nerve in the neck, attached to a generator, and delivers a certain current to the vagal nerve, which has a broad connectivity with the rest of the brain. And that has an ability to control seizures as well.
And there's a procedure called corpus callosotomy, which is done in the center of the head where the corpus callosum, a fiber bundle that connects the right and the left side of the brain is severed and that is done to prevent the rapid spread of seizure activity and to really help with these drop attacks. So that's also done more or less as a palliative procedure in children with this type of epilepsy.
ANNOUNCER: Pediatric brain surgery for epilepsy is most effective in children who fit three main criteria.
