POSTOPERATIVE EEG AND ELECTROCORTICOGRAPHY - RELATION TO CLINICAL OUTCOME IN PATIENTS WITH TEMPORAL-LOBE SURGERY

To evaluate the role of different EEG methods with respect to postoper ative clinical follow-up, 32 non-lesionary epilepsy patients who had u ndergone temporal lobectomy were studied preoperatively and at 2-week, 3-month, and 1-year postoperative follow-up. Routine, sleep, and sphe noidal EEG recordings as well as intraoperative electrocorticography ( ECoG) were made for all patients. At 1-year follow-up, the EEGs with s phenoidal electrodes and with sleep deprivation procedure provided imp ortant prognostic information; the appearance of seizures was associat ed with the presence of interictal epileptiform abnormalities in EEG. In the postresection ECoG, however, epileptiform abnormalities were no t associated with clinical outcome or with postoperative epileptiform EEG at 1 year. Routine EEG reliably reflects clinical outcome after te mporal lobectomy; with sphenoidal electrodes as well as with sleep dep rivation procedure, the diagnostic yield can be further improved.