Socioeconomic outcome of epilepsy surgery: A controlled national study.
PURPOSE
Epilepsy surgery has been a standard treatment for refractory epilepsies that cannot be controlled by standard medical treatment. We aimed to evaluate the health and social consequences of resective surgery relative to controls from a study of national data.


METHODS
Using the Danish National Patient Registry we identified all subjects with an epilepsy diagnosis between 1996 and 2009 and compared them with a group of patients with an epilepsy diagnosis who had had neither epilepsy surgery nor a vagus stimulation diagnosis by the index date, and who were matched by gender, index year for epilepsy diagnosis, and index year for epilepsy surgery. We considered all the health and social information available in the Danish health, medication and social registers. The duration of follow-up was three years.


RESULTS
254 epilepsy patients and 989 controls were analyzed. Surgery patients were more severely affected by their disease as indicated by health care use and social impact before the surgical procedure. Patients who underwent epilepsy surgery had a significantly lower costs associated with the use of medication, outpatient services, inpatient admissions, and accident and emergency visits after surgery. The surgical intervention had no significant effects on social status in terms of occupation and educational level.


CONCLUSION
Although epilepsy surgery was followed by a reduction in inpatient and outpatient health care use, medication and use of accident and emergency facilities, suggesting a positive effect on the epileptic disease, there was no significant effect on social outcome measures.
['Jennum|Poul|P|', 'Sabers|Anne|A|', 'Christensen|Jakob|J|', 'Ibsen|Rikke|R|', 'Kjellberg|Jakob|J|']
D000293:Adolescent D000328:Adult D016022:Case-Control Studies D002648:Child D002675:Child, Preschool D003718:Denmark D000069279:Drug Resistant Epilepsy D004522:Educational Status D005260:Female D005500:Follow-Up Studies D017048:Health Care Costs D006801:Humans D007223:Infant D007231:Infant, Newborn D008297:Male D019635:Neurosurgical Procedures D009790:Occupations D012042:Registries D012720:Severity of Illness Index D055815:Young Adult
Epilepsy Controlled Childhood Prospective Welfare costs