Comment from Professor Andreas Schulze-Bonhage on: Lesion-focused stereotactic thermo-coagulation of focal cortical dysplasia II-B: A new approach to epilepsy surgery?

An emerging strength of stereotactic RFTC is its high precision brain areas where conventional resection would carry a nificant risk for persistent neurological deficits. This observation s been made before by other groups who applied stereotactic TC to hypothalamic hamartomas and periventricular nodular terotopia. The volume-of-destruction achieved by RFTC can be anticipated liably. Commercially available brachytherapy software allows e planning of complex three-dimensional ablations. The elective uation of preoperative planning facilitates the integrating of ultimodal imaging information. During surgery, the validity of esurgical assumptions regarding the epileptogenicity of the sion and the proximity or distance to eloquent structures can be termined via the very electrode that is subsequently used for agulation. This feedback is an advantage of RFTC over other structive surgical techniques such as stereotactic radiosurry. Another advantage over radiosurgery is that the lesions are mediately destroyed without significant oedema.