Effective application of corpus callosotomy in pediatric intractable epilepsy patients with mitochondrial dysfunction

BACKGROUND: Whether epilepsy surgery, such as corpus callosotomy is effective in patients with pediatric intractable epilepsy with mitochondrial dysfunction is controversial, and there is a paucity of literature on this issue. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to assess and describe the effective application of corpus callosotomy for treating pediatric patients with intractable epilepsy with mitochondrial dysfunction in a single institution in Korea. METHODS: This was a retrospective study of pediatric patients with intractable epilepsy and mitochondrial dysfunction who underwent corpus callosotomy in a single tertiary care center. Ten patients with intractable epilepsy with mitochondrial dysfunction were included, and 10 patients with intractable epilepsy with non-mitochondrial dysfunctions were included as a control group. The outcomes of corpus callosotomy in the two groups were evaluated and compared. RESULTS: Corpus callosotomy was safely performed and was efficacious in reducing seizure frequency in both groups. The group with non-mitochondrial dysfunction showed slightly better treatment outcomes, with greater reductions in overall seizures, traumatic falling seizures, and electroencephalography improvements, but the differences in treatment effects were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Our study is meaningful as it identified the use of corpus callosotomy as a means to save lives and improve quality of life by reducing the frequency of seizures and those associated with traumatic falling in pediatric patients with intractable epilepsy with mitochondrial dysfunction. Larger multicenter studies are necessary to confirm the efficacy of the procedure.