Surgical and postmortem pathology studies: contribution for the investigation of temporal lobe epilepsy

Pathology studies in epilepsy patients bring useful information for comprehending the physiopathology of various forms of epilepsy, as well as aspects related to response to treatment and long-term prognosis. These studies are usually restricted to surgical specimens obtained from patients with refr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Luís Otávio Sales Ferreira Caboclo, Rafael Scarpa Neves, Anaclara Prada Jardim, Ana Paula Andrade Hamad, Ricardo Silva Centeno, Carmen Lucia Penteado Lancellotti, Carla Alessandra Scorza, Esper Abrão Cavalheiro, Elza Márcia Targas Yacubian, Américo Ceiki Sakamoto
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Academia Brasileira de Neurologia (ABNEURO) 2012-12-01
Series:Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria
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Online Access:http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2012001200009&lng=en&tlng=en
Description
Summary:Pathology studies in epilepsy patients bring useful information for comprehending the physiopathology of various forms of epilepsy, as well as aspects related to response to treatment and long-term prognosis. These studies are usually restricted to surgical specimens obtained from patients with refractory focal epilepsies. Therefore, most of them pertain to temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) with mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) and malformations of cortical development (MCD), thus providing information of a selected group of patients and restricted regions of the brain. Postmortem whole brain studies are rarely performed in epilepsy patients, however they may provide extensive information on brain pathology, allowing the analysis of areas beyond the putative epileptogenic zone. In this article, we reviewed pathology studies performed in epilepsy patients with emphasis on neuropathological findings in TLE with MTS and MCD. Furthermore, we reviewed data from postmortem studies and discussed the importance of performing these studies in epilepsy populations.
ISSN:1678-4227