1 S T CONGRESS OF THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY
Berlin, Germany, June 20 -23, 2015
Neurosurgery in epilepsy: cooperation between Ljubljana and
Erlangen university clinics achieves 90 percent patient satisfaction
rating
Neurosurgical epilepsy treatments should only be carried out by specialist facilities, even if that calls for
cross-border cooperation, explained Prof David B. Vodušek at the Congress of the European Academy of
Neurology in Berlin. His clinic has been working with the University Hospital Erlangen for more than a
decade. A long-term follow-up study showed that more than 60 percent of patients are now seizure free.
Berlin, 21 June 2015 – Instead of performing surgery itself, or turning its back on surgical intervention as a
treatment option, the University Medical Centre in Ljubljana chose to join forces with a centre of excellence for
highly specialised neurosurgical procedures abroad. Under the cross-border cooperation with the Epilepsy
Centre at the University Hospital in Erlangen, more than 50 Slovenian epilepsy patients underwent surgery in
Germany between 2001 and 2012, receiving treatment that was otherwise unavailable in their home country.
The results of the long-term follow-up study were presented by its author Prof David B. Vodušek of the
University Medical Centre, Ljubljana, Chairman of the EAN Liaison Committee, at the 1st Congress of the
European Academy of Neurology (EAN) in Berlin. More than 6,500 experts from all over the world are
discussing the latest developments in their field from 20 to 23 June in the German capital city.
“Modern medicine is developing at an amazing rate, putting new demands on both health care delivery and
physicians’ expertise. Furthermore, the modern approach to patient care relies more and more on teams
consisting of a number of professionals”, Prof Vodušek said. “For such a team to be both economically viable
and professionally experienced regular exposure to a sufficient number of patients is necessary. For some
patient populations in a small country, this critical number may not be achieved and novel approaches to good
patient care have to be defined.”
As the study demonstrated, the international cooperation represented a major breakthrough for most of the
Slovenian patients. “The majority of patients – 89 percent – felt that the surgical treatment largely fulfilled their
expectations,” Prof Vodušek reported.
Temporal lobe resections: case numbers need to add up
Almost 90 precent of the patients covered by the study suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy that could not be
treated using conventional therapies. In such cases, temporal lobe resection is among the recommended
therapies, resulting in complete freedom from seizure in two thirds of patients. Extratemporal resection can
also lead to improvement, albeit with lower success rates.
The study also showed that potential language barriers should not be allowed to stand in the way of identifying
effective methods of treating patients, Prof Vodušek pointed out: “In Slovenia, with two million inhabitants
speaking the national language, long term cooperation between the University Medical Center in Ljubljana and
the University Hospital Erlangen in Germany has demonstrated that even patients with epilepsy, candidates for
surgical treatment, who need intraoperative neuropsychological testing in their mother tongue can be
successfully treated in the frmework of a transnational European collaboration. Institutional collaboration
allows for uninterrupted care of patients both near their home and abroad, and also for transparency in overall
treatment quality of the foreign service providers. Thus, such institutional collaboration would seem a better
solution for the national health service of a small country than funding individual patients to make their own
choice of treatment abroad.”
61 percent completely seizure free
The success rates confirm the validity of the cross-border approach: Fully 61 percent of those Slowenian
patients treated in Erlangen presented complete freedom from seizures, while a further 28 percent were free
of disabling seizures. Cognitive decline after surgery was rare and mood disturbances were mostly of a
transient nature. The study also found that surgical treatment did not impact the patients’ employment status.
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1 S T CONGRESS OF THE EUROPEAN ACADEMY OF NEUROLOGY
Berlin, Germany, June 20 -23, 2015
Prof Vodušek: “As EAN’s foremost task is improving neurological patient care in Europe, it might consider
developing an ‘exchange bourse’ of high quality service providers of specific evidence based treatments relying
on special expertise and equipment, in non-profit academic centres, and tertiary medical centers in small
countries seeking collaboration for particular patient populations, mirroring the very successful EAN
Department to Department program facilitating exchange of young neurologists.”
Source: EAN Abstract Vodusek et al, Benefits of European cooperation in clinical neuroscience: Outcome of epilepsy surgery in a cohort of
Slovenian patients treated in collaboration between Ljubljana and Erlangen, Germany
EAN Press Office
B&K – Bettschart&Kofler Kommunikationsberatung
Dr Birgit Kofler
Phone: +43 1 3194378; +49 172 7949286; +43 676 6368930
E-mail: kofler@bkkommunikation.com
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