Electrical Stimulation for Seizure Induction in Pediatric Drug-Refractory Epilepsy (ESIS in Pedriatric DRE).
Sarah Katie Ihnen
Summary
The main reason for this research study is to gain information about how the brain makes seizures by causing seizures using very small amounts of current, or electrical stimulation. Using small amounts of current to cause seizures (or stimulate) is not new at CCHMC - it is part of routine clinical practice for some patients at some electrodes. This study differs from routine clinical care in that all study patients will undergo electrical stimulation in all or nearly all electrode contacts. The study team is doing this because there is promising data in adult patients that stimulating comprehensively (targeting all or nearly all of the electrode contacts) helps define the seizure network. Defining the seizure network in turn helps the medical team plan surgery. So far, there is not as much published data on seizure stimulation for pediatric patients. This research study thus has the potential both to help individual patients (by providing specific information about your seizure networks) and to help pediatric patients with epilepsy in general (by increasing our understanding of stimulated seizures in children, teenagers and young adults).
Description
Epilepsy affects about 1% of the population, with roughly 30% of patients with epilepsy eventually developing drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE). Increasingly, surgery is pursued for DRE, yielding seizure freedom rates of 50-70%. However, accurate deduction of the epileptogenic zone (EZ) for surgical planning can be difficult in pediatric DRE, especially in those cases of multifocal seizures, as is often seen in Tuberous Sclerosis Complex (TSC), for example. Patients with multifocal epilepsy typically require a period of pre-surgical invasive EEG monitoring to record spontaneous seizures, the gold…
Eligibility
- Age range
- 1–30 years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- No
Inclusion Criteria: * Diagnosis of drug-refractory epilepsy (DRE) * 1-30 years of age * recommended to undergo stereoencephalography (sEEG) at CCHMC Exclusion Criteria: * \<1 and \>30 years of age
Location
- Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical CenterCincinnati, Ohio