To determine if patients with epilepsy are appropriate candidates for resective surgery, presurgical conferences are conducted to review magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of the patient’s head. Kenney and associates analyzed repeat reviews of MRIs at presurgical epilepsy conferences to assess their impact on the decision-making process. Among the 233 patients whose charts were re-reviewed, 94 patients (40.3%) had the resective surgery performed, and the analysis revealed that 41 patients (17.6%) had previously undiagnosed findings; 18 of the 41 patients had the surgery. However, among 4 of the 41 patients (9.8%), the re-reviews found abnormalities that did not warrant surgical resection, including autoimmunity and bilateral pathology.
Kenney DL, Kelly-Williams KM, Krecke KN et al. Usefulness of Repeat Review of Head Magnetic Resonance Images During Presurgical Epilepsy Conferences. Epilepsy Res. 2016. In press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.eplepsyres.2016.06.005.
