The development of a new tool to identify patients who are candidates for temporal lobe epilepsy surgery - a new tool for the identification of patients with potentially resectable epilepsy.

Epilepsy affects people of all ages, gender and socioeconomic status. In Canada, 16,000 people are diagnosed with epilepsy every year and at any given time, 190,000 Canadians suffer from active epilepsy requiring medical attention. Temporal lobe epilepsy is the commonest type of partial epilepsy. Years of uncontrolled epilepsy can decrease one's intelligence and quality-of-life and increase the burden on society. Fortunately, there is hope for those with epilepsy who do not respond to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs): epilepsy surgery has been shown to be better than AEDs for temporal lobe epilepsy in those who continue to have seizures despite medications. Unfortunately, many individuals are not referred for epilepsy surgery until they have had epilepsy for nearly 20 years. Promoting the use of epilepsy surgery in those who continue to have seizures despite medications is a way to improve their quality-of-life by ensuring they are receiving the very best possible care for their condition. In this project, we will develop a tool to help doctors identify individuals with epilepsy (any partial epilepsies including temporal lobe epilepsy) who may benefit from epilepsy surgery. We will review all patient charts at two centers during a 5 year period to determine how many of these subjects are candidates for a referral for a surgical evaluation. The new tool will help doctors take better care of individuals with partial epilepsy, including temporal lobe epilepsy. We will distribute the tool to all neurologists nationally. The tool can also be used by health care administrators and quality-and-safety personnel to determine whether quality-of-care is being provided to those with temporal lobe epilepsy (and other partial epilepsies) and by ensuring that patients who do not respond to AEDs are evaluated for possible surgery with the ultimate goal of rendering them seizure free.