THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A medical team at the Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Center has developed a new method to map the brain areas that cause seizures in epilepsy patients, thereby helping to make epilepsy surgery safer and more effective. The technique, called PASCOM (PET Asymmetry after Anatomical Symmetrization Coregistered to MRI), helps surgeons conduct precise surgeries.
Most people can control their epilepsy with medication; however, in 30% of patients, epilepsy continues despite the right treatment. This condition, known as ‘drug-resistant epilepsy’, not only affects education, employment, personal freedom and quality of life, but also severely impacts pregnancy and the intellectual development of children.
Surgery is the best way to eliminate epilepsy for such patients, but the success of surgery depends on accurately locating the source of epilepsy in the brain, as inaccuracy can lead to surgical failure or unnecessary health problems.
Traditionally, doctors rely on visual analysis of MRI or PET scans, but tissue damage or deformity can be so specific that scan images sometimes miss subtle abnormalities.
“We have developed an AI tool that records even very small deviations, and the source of epilepsy is accurately mapped by comparing the left and right sides of the patient’s brain using computational tools. The accuracy of the tool is more than 85%,” said Dr Siby Gopinath, Professor and Head, Department of Neurology, Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences & Research Center.
The researchers pointed out that the tool would be helpful in hospitals that do not have advanced technologies to locate the specific area for neurosurgery.
Future is here...
The tool is being tested at different centres in the US, Canada, Italy, France, Bulgaria and India.
The results of the study were published in the prestigious Journal of Neurosurgery.
The technology has already received patents from India and the USA. In Kerala, 6-7 persons out of every 1,000 are affected by epilepsy.