AIIMS doctors devise new surgical technique to treat epilepsy

Doctors at the country's premier health institute AIIMS have devised a new minimally invasive surgical technique for treating a severe form of epilepsy, especially in children.
The procedure involves a complete unilateral hemispheric disconnection of the brain through minimally invasive endoscopy-assisted approach.
The technique, developed by Dr P Sarat Chandra, Professor of Neurosurgery at All India Institute Of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi has been published in reputed journals and presented at multiple international and national meetings.
"Conventionally, hemispherotomy is a very complex surgical procedure, which involves a large cranial incision, followed by a major surgery where an entire affected hemisphere is either removed or disconnected from the healthier opposite side.

"This technique allows the entire procedure to be performed with the use of an endoscope through an incision just of size 4X3 cm. In addition, the entire surgery is performed using neuronavigation, a sophisticated computer aided device along with the use of brain suite, where MRI is performed immediately after surgery to confirm complete disconnection," explained Dr Chandra.
This technique, Dr Chandra said, is usually performed on young children who find it difficult to tolerate large openings and blood loss.
"Furthermore, the children on whom these procedures are performed are very sick, sometimes having several hundred seizures a day. This is because a whole hemisphere is diseased and is generating severe epilepsy," Dr Chandra said.