Approximately two million adults and 500,000 children have been diagnosed with epilepsy (seizure disorder) in the United States. Epilepsy is a devastating condition that encroaches upon every facet of the patient's life - it is difficult to work, many are not allowed to drive, and most all sufferers feel the effects of its negative stigma. Epilepsy is a generic term used to define many different types of seizure disorders. A person that has recurring seizures is said to have epilepsy. A seizure is a disturbance of the electrical activity in the brain. Most often the cause of these seizures is unknown. From 75 - 85% of patients with epilepsy can be treated with medication that controls or eliminates the debilitating seizures. The rest aren't so lucky - medications do not control the recurring seizures. For these patients, surgery to remove the portion of the brain that is causing the electrical disturbance may be the only option to control their epilepsy. PET helps determine if surgery can be useful.
		Thanks to PET, focal areas of seizures can be identified. This is helpful to determine whether or not brain surgery to remove the seizure site is a treatment option. Generally, surgery is only an option when the center of the electrical disturbance is confined to a small focal area in the brain. With the help of PET, scientists have discovered that a child's brain has the ability to compensate for itself, even when a major portion is surgically removed. This knowledge has allowed surgeons to help children with uncontrollable seizures. An entire hemisphere of the brain can be surgically removed and the child will still be able to grow and function quite well. PET identifies abnormal areas even if the brain looks normal on a CT or MR scan. Doctors depend on PET to show the area responsible for the seizures AND confirm that there are not other focal areas that produce similar electrical disturbances. Without PET, patients may have to undergo an additional open-brain surgery to localize the cause of the seizure activity - a costly and risky undertaking. Now, many curative surgeries can be planned and avoided in others - without that risk and cost.