Making pediatric epilepsy surgery more accessible
Pediatricians play a vital role in boosting the use of epilepsy surgery for better patient outcomes.
Despite proven safety, efficacy and cost effectiveness, surgery for pharmacoresistant epilepsy remains one of the most underutilized, evidence-based treatments in modern medicine. Pediatricians are key stakeholders for increasing epilepsy surgical utilization.
A recent commentary from Children’s National Hospital experts — led by Nathan Cohen, M.D., neurologist; Chima Oluigbo, M.D., neurosurgeon; and William D. Gaillard, M.D., chief of Neurology — offers a new perspective that highlights the issue and offers practical solutions to increase primary care physician comfort in the referral of patients for epilepsy surgery.
“Pediatricians should feel empowered to open discussions with epilepsy patients and their families about the possibility of surgery,” the authors write. “Through partnership with managing neurologists and early referral to epilepsy surgery centers, together we can begin to dismantle the significant barriers to access. Only by overcoming our own fears of initiating these discussions can we offer hope to those patients and families who need it the most.”
You can read the full commentary, “Breaking Barriers to Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery Utilization,” in The Journal of Pediatrics.
