Neuronavigation as a Tool for Pre-Surgical Planning in Refractory Epilepsy Surgery

Summary Epilepsy is one of the most frequent chronic neurological pathologies, with high incidence and prevalence worldwide. A third of these patients are resistant to treatment, which is known as refractory epilepsy. Most of these patients suffer epilepsy secondary to epileptogenic lesions, where the surgery is the only treatment that could cure epilepsy. The goal of epilepsy surgery is to remove the epileptogenic area with preservation of eloquent areas, and here the surgical experience, the neuroimaging technology and the availability of image-guided surgery systems known as a neuronavigator plays a key role. Objectives: To demonstrate the usefulness of neuronavigation in pre-surgical planning and in the surgery of refractory epilepsy. Method: A cross-sectional and analytical descriptive study was conducted based on 47 surgeries performed (12 resective, 32 palliative and 3 diagnostic) in patients with refractory epilepsy and mean age of 9.93 years (SD 4.1). In 27 patients (57.44%) the neuronavigator was used. In the group of patients operated with neuronavigation, the surgical time decreased by 47.17 minutes (p = 0.022), the amount of bleeding by 111.41 milliliters (p = 0.011) and the days of hospitalization by 6.68 days (p = 0.005), compared with the group operated without neuronavigation. Complications in the neuronavigation group were 29.63% compared to 65% in the group operated without neuronavigation (p = 0.034). Conclusions: In our series, the use of the neuronavigator in the planning and development of the surgery had a significant impact by reducing the amount of bleeding lost, the surgical time, the days of hospitalization, and the post-surgical complications.