Anesthesia for temporal lobe epilepsy surgery

Anesthetic considerations for temporal lobectomy for refractory epilepsy in clude ensuring a safe and comfortable perioperative experience for the pati ent, providing suitable operating conditions for the surgeon, avoiding inte rference with intraoperative electrocorticographic (ECoG) recordings and fa cilitating intraoperative functional cortical mapping, if performed. Provid ing the conditions that simultaneously meet these requirements, using gener al anesthesia or local anesthesia with sedation, remains a significant chal lenge for the neuroanesthetist. We review issues pertinent to the choice of anesthetic technique for these procedures.