Disparities in Pediatric Epilepsy Surgery: Addressing Access and Health Inequality

2023-12-05 15:45:00

TUESDAY, Dec. 5, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Black, Hispanic and low-income children are less likely to undergo surgery that might treat their drug-resistant epilepsy, a new study finds.

Researchers found that children taking anti-seizure medications who received vagus nerve stimulation were 35 percent more likely to be alive following 10 years, and those who also had cranial surgery were 83 percent more likely of being alive.

But they found that white children were much more likely to receive the life-saving surgery.

“For the first time, we measured the impact of treatments for drug-resistant epilepsy in children, and found that surgical care is associated with longer survival, yet there are disparities in who receives this care,” the study said. lead investigator, Dr. Sandi Lam, chief of the division of pediatric neurosurgery at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

“I think we can all agree that it is not right that certain groups of people are less likely to receive surgical treatments that can help them live longer,” Lam added.

Vagus nerve stimulation involves implanting a device under the skin of the chest that sends electrical pulses to the vagus nerve, which sends information between the brain and body, according to the Epilepsy Foundation. This has been shown to modify the likelihood of seizures.

Cranial surgery involves removing the area of ​​the brain where a person’s seizures occur. This type of surgery can eliminate between 50% and 90% of disabling seizures, according to the Epilepsy Foundation.

In this study, researchers followed more than 18,000 children treated for drug-resistant epilepsy at 49 different U.S. children’s hospitals between 2004 and 2020. In these cases, the medications that normally treat epilepsy had stopped working.

Of those children, 10,240 were treated with anti-seizure medications, more than 5,000 received medications and vagus nerve stimulation, and more than 3,000 received medications and cranial surgery.

There was a significant difference in the races and ethnicities who had surgery for their epilepsy.

Children with Medicaid were also less likely to receive surgical treatment. A greater proportion of patients who underwent cranial surgery had private insurance compared to those who received medications or drugs and vagus nerve stimulation.

The new study was presented Friday at the American Epilepsy Society’s annual meeting. Such research should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

“More research is needed to understand and inform the development of targeted strategies to improve access to epilepsy surgery and multidisciplinary management for all children with medication-resistant epilepsy, regardless of socioeconomic background, race, or disability status.” sure,” Lam said in a press release from the meeting. “Our current health care system must be closely examined and we must make progress in identifying improvements to address disparities in pediatric epilepsy care.”

More information

The Epilepsy Foundation offers more information regarding epilepsy surgery.

SOURCE: American Epilepsy Society, press release, December 1, 2023

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