Abstracts

Rationale: Corpus callosotomy is usually intended to alleviate epileptic seizures. The chance of seizure freedom after corpus callosotomy is generally 10% or less, so that the efficacy of surgery has been assessed with several different measures. However, it is difficult to assess the benefit of surgery, because of low chance of post-operative seizure freedom, the presence of severe developmental delay, and seizure related risk of injury as a goal of surgery. Here, we investigated parental satisfaction after corpus callosotomy. Methods: Questionnaires were sent anonymously to parents of 16 patients with infantile or early childhood onset epilepsy. All patients underwent total corpus callosotomy and had minimum 6 months follow-up. The questionnaire included items about relative changes in seizure frequency and parental satisfaction. Results: Questionnaires were returned from 15 patients. Parental satisfaction was categorized as "quite satisfied" in 5, "satisfied" in 4, "satisfied little" in 2, "neither satisfied or unsatisfied" in 3 and "unsatisfied little" in 1 patient. Freedom from any seizures and from drop attacks was reported from 4 and 6 patients, respectively, all associated with satisfactory results. Four-tier grading system (1. Complete seizure freedom including drop attacks, 2. Seizure reduction and free from drop attacks, 3. Only seizure reduction, 4. No worthwhile reduction) was highly correlated with parental satisfaction (Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient, rho = -0.92). Conclusions: Parental satisfaction is achieved after corpus callosotomy in more than half of patients. Complete seizure freedom and/or free from drop attacks are associated with greater parental satisfaction. A new measure incorporating those factors was proposed for assessing post-operative outcome after corpus callosotomy.