Int’l Congress On Refractory Epilepsy Underway In Isfahan

Tehran, Oct 23, IRNA - The First International Congress on Refractory Epilepsy is underway at the Isfahan Medical University. Comprehensive Epilepsy Center of Isfahan’s Kashani Hospital has organized the four-day congress, which will continue until October 24. Distinguished neurologists from Iran, Canada and the US attended the event. Professor Jean Gotman from McGill University, Canada, Professor Hans O. Lüders from Case Western Reserve University, USA, Professor Marilyn Jones-Gotman from McGill University, Canada, Dr. Shahram Amina from Case Western Reserve University, Dr. Yahya Aghakhani from University of Calgary, Canada, and Dr. Ehsan Sherafat Kazemzadeh from the University of Manitoba, Canada, are keynote speakers. Secretary of the congress, Jafar Mahvari, said about one percent of Iran’s population, about 750,000 people, suffer from epilepsy and 25 percent of whom have refractory epilepsy. Neurological and psychiatric symptoms of refractory epilepsy, imaging, new diagnostic methods, new surgical techniques, mapping, brain stimulation during surgery and medication therapy in patients with refractory epilepsy are main topics of the congress. Most epilepsy specialists agree that in refractory epilepsy, seizures are frequent and severe, or the required therapy for them troublesome enough, to seriously interfere with quality of life. Studies suggest that epilepsy fails to come quickly under control with medicines in about one-third of cases. Drug-resistant epilepsy occurs when a person has failed to become seizure-free with adequate trials of seizure medications./end