Author/Authors :
Pooya، Ali A Asadi نويسنده MD., Associate Professor of Epileptology, Neurosciences Research Center, Department of Neurology , , Ashjazadeh، Nahid نويسنده Shiraz Neurosciences Research Center, Department of Neurology, Chamran Hospital, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Kamgarpour، Ahmad نويسنده Department of Neurosurgery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Taghipour، Mousa نويسنده , , Rakei، Seyed Mohamad نويسنده MD., Department of Neurosurgery , , Farazdaghi، Mohsen نويسنده MD., Department of Neurology , , INALOO، Soroor نويسنده MD,Pediatric Neurologist, Associate Professor, Shiraz Neuroscience Research Center, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Bagheri، Mohammad Hadi نويسنده Medical Imaging Research Center and Department of Radiology, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Razmkon، Ali نويسنده Research Office for the History of Persian Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran , , Zare Sharabadi، Zahra نويسنده General Office of Standard and Industrial Research of Tehran, Iran ,
Abstract :
Background: Of about 40 million people with epilepsy, who live in developing countries, the majority do not receive appropriate treatment. Nonetheless, there are striking disparities among the so-called developing coun-tries, however generally speaking, access to and availability of epilepsy management programs in developing countries are very limited and therefore, the issue of developing epilepsy centers in resource-limited settings in a large scale is very essential. The surgery for epilepsy, including temporal lobotomy, lesionectomy and corpus colostomy, for patients with medically-refractory seizures, defined as failure of adequate trials of two tolerated, appropriately chosen and using antiepileptic drug to achieve sustained freedom, from seizure has been proved to be feasible and cost-effective in developing countries. However, the success of epilepsy surgery depends up-on the accurate identification of good surgical candidates based on the available resources and technologies without jeopardizing safety. In the current paper, we will share our experiences of establishing an epilepsy sur-gery program in Iran, despite all short-comings and limitations and try to provide some answers to those chal-lenges, which helped us establish our program.
