In Israel, a young man was cured of epilepsy in one day using a new method
At the Israeli hospital Ichilov, a young man who suffered from a severe form of epilepsy for half his life was freed from seizures in just one day. This was made possible by an innovative method based on laser cauterization of the area of the brain responsible for producing pathological impulses. Israel became the second country after the USA to successfully apply this advanced technique, recognized as an effective and safe alternative to open brain surgery with craniotomy.
The first seizure of 23-year-old Tel Aviv resident Peleg Hadar occurred during his teenage years. One morning, he woke up on the floor next to his bed, rubbing his red eyes. He could not remember what had happened during the night. His frightened parents took him to a doctor that same day, but he could not identify the problem. After changing three neurologists and undergoing a series of diagnostic tests, Peleg finally learned his diagnosis: epilepsy.
“It was terrifying,” recalls the young man. “The seizures were daily and usually occurred at night. The illness practically destroyed my life. I couldn’t go on excursions with my class, couldn’t stay overnight at friends’ houses like many of my peers, and didn’t go to parties because the flashing lights triggered a ‘short circuit’ in my brain – and a seizure would start. I lived in constant fear of another seizure.” Peleg admits that for a long time he hid his problem from friends and acquaintances so they wouldn’t think he was mentally ill.
According to him, the troubles were not only caused by the epileptic seizures themselves. They have a “precursor” – the so-called aura, which has its own manifestations. They can vary and depend on the location of the pathological focus. This can include numbness of the head, confusion, brief memory loss, olfactory hallucinations, blurred vision, and muscle spasms. After a seizure, a person remains anxious for some time.
Peleg was prescribed medication, but it was not only ineffective but also had a number of side effects, including hand tremors, increased fatigue, decreased visual acuity, etc.
After being drafted into the Israel Defense Forces, the frequency of Peleg's epileptic seizures increased. “My classmates would wake up in the middle of the night because of the creaking of my bed,” recalls the young man. “Hearing my convulsions, they would put a pillow under my head so I wouldn’t get injured.” After being hospitalized due to another episode, the military authorities decided to exempt him from service.
Life-saving method
In the spring of last year, Peleg Hadar turned to a specialized epilepsy treatment clinic at the Ichilov Medical Center. There, after analyzing his case and considering the drug-resistant form of the disease, they offered the patient an innovative method – laser interstitial thermal therapy. Identifying the area of the brain with pathological neuronal activity, the clinic's doctors cauterized it with a laser. By the next day, the severe convulsive seizures had stopped.
According to Dr. Firas Fahum, a leading neurologist and epileptologist in Israel, epilepsy encompasses a range of neurological disorders caused by disturbances in the electrical activity of the brain. It can be generalized, where both hemispheres are involved in the pathological process, or focal, where only one hemisphere of the brain is affected.
The cause of the former is usually genetic predisposition, while the latter arises under the influence of various factors such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, structural changes in the brain, infections, and inflammatory processes. The doctor notes that any scarred area of brain tissue can potentially become a pathological focus that stimulates epileptic seizures.
He states that generalized epilepsy is treated only with medication; however, drug therapy works only for 70% of patients, while seizures do not stop for the others. Epileptics live in a state of constant stress related to the anticipation of another seizure and the stigmatization of their diagnosis. “In the past, when doctors did not yet know what exactly caused seizures, epilepsy was considered a mental illness,” Dr. Fahum explains. “Unfortunately, many in society still mistakenly hold this view.”
An alternative to complex surgery
Until recently, patients with drug-resistant epilepsy had only one option – removal of the epileptogenic focus through open brain surgery with craniotomy. However, now doctors have a gentler alternative – the destruction of the pathological area with a laser. The new method does not require opening the skull; instead, the neurosurgeon drills a tiny – up to four millimeters in diameter – hole in the patient’s forehead, through which a fiber optic cable is directed to the necessary area of the brain. It is connected to a laser device, and under MRI control – to eliminate the risk of damaging healthy cells – the epileptogenic focus is burned away.
The procedure lasts just over an hour. The next day, the patient undergoes a follow-up examination and can leave the clinic. From that moment on, seizures no longer trouble him. As Dr. Fahum notes, laser interstitial thermal therapy cannot be performed on all epileptics; it will only work if the pathological focus is small and has clear boundaries. An important condition is also its distance from the areas of the brain responsible for vital functions.
This is the treatment that Peleg Hadar received at Ichilov Hospital. Initially, about a hundred electrodes were inserted into the young man's brain, with which they monitored brain activity for ten days. During this period, medication was reduced to provoke a seizure. Almost a year has passed since the procedure, and during this time, the young man has not had a single seizure.
“I have freed myself from the fear I lived in for the last ten years,” says the young man. “Recently, I applied for a driver's license and plan to travel abroad; all of this was previously inaccessible to me. Now I am gradually getting used to living without the illness; I have become calmer and more confident about the future.”