Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery: Preoperative Assessment and Surgical Treatment

Çataltepe O, Jallo GI. Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery: Preoperative Assessment and Surgical Treatment. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Thieme Medical Publishers; 2020. ISBN: 9781626238169

Surgical treatment remains the cornerstone in the management of patients with intractable epilepsy. Pediatric epilepsy surgery has unique characteristics and aspects differentiating it from epilepsy surgery in adults with regard to age-specific surgical techniques. Moreover, the presurgical evaluation of pediatric patients and elucidating the epileptogenic zone can be challenging, particularly in infants and young children. In this second edition of Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery, editors Cataltepe and Jallo provide a comprehensive overview of the presurgical evaluation and the surgical techniques for pediatric epilepsy. This book has 682 pages, divided into 5 sections and 74 chapters. Chapters are well-written, concise with ample clear illustrations and images. The editors have assembled experts from around the world to contribute to this volume.

The first part of the book provides an introduction to pediatric epilepsy surgery, tackling the historical, genetic, developmental, and ethical aspects of pediatric epilepsy and its surgery. The second section addresses the presurgical work-up with chapters on clinical semiology, magnetencephalography, and stereoelectroencephalography among many others. The third section discusses surgical anatomy and mapping techniques, and the fourth section launches into the detailed surgical techniques with emphasis on extratemporal lobe surgeries including insular surgeries, hemispherectomies, and radiosurgery and ablative procedures. Lastly, the authors present some chapters addressing surgical outcomes including surgical failure and reoperation procedures. The high point of this book is its emphasis on neuroimaging and functional mapping. The book provides a very comprehensive neuroimaging review including both structural and functional brain imaging. Chapter 22 is of particular interest, discussing the co-registration of multiple imaging modalities to create a single functional and electrographic portrait. Two chapters detail the topographic anatomy of the cerebral cortex and white matter tracts, with an excellent addendum on localizing the main cerebral gyri and sulci on brain magnetic resonance imaging. Other chapters highlight cortical mapping and stimulation along with various techniques for eloquent cortex localization. One drawback of this book pertinent to the epileptologist is the absence of detailed coverage of the clinical and semiological presentation of epilepsy syndromes. While chapters 12 (Clinical Semiology in Preoperative Assessment), 14 (Electroencephalography and Noninvasive Assessment), and 35 (Mesial Temporal Sclerosis in Pediatric Epilepsy) do review these topics as an overview, one would likely need to refer to more detailed sources for a thorough semiological and clinical-electrographic analysis. Although the book comes with a link to 13 videos about seizure semiology and some surgical techniques, I did not find them particularly useful.

Overall, the book is easy to read with well-partitioned, succinct chapters, plenty of high-quality illustrations of neuroimaging and electroencephalography. It is a rich resource for both neurosurgeons and neurologists interested in pediatric epilepsy and its surgical evaluation and treatment. This book is going to be my go-to source for surgical anatomy.