Background: Methohexital and amobarbital have been used as agents for Wada testing in the presurgical evaluation of patients with epilepsy. Previous experience with methohexital as an anesthetic indicates that methohexital may decrease seizure threshold and may trigger seizures.
Methods: A retrospective chart review of 760 intracarotid amobarbital and methohexital tests was performed to determine the frequency of seizures associated with preoperative intracarotid barbiturate testing for language and memory lateralization.
Results: Sixteen patients (2.1%) who had seizures were found. In 3 patients, seizures occurred prior to barbiturate injection, and in 13, following barbiturate injection. After injection of amobarbital, 4 of 538 patients (0.7%) had a seizure. Nine of 222 patients had a seizure after methohexital injection (4.1%) (P=0.001).
Conclusion: Patients with a previous history of epilepsy may be at higher risk for seizures after methohexital injection as compared with amobarbital injection.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.yebeh.2006.09.001 | DOI Listing |
J Clin Med
December 2024
Department of Correct, Clinical and Imaging Anatomy, Medical University of Lublin, ul. Jaczewskiego 4, 20-090 Lublin, Poland.
As speech-related symptoms of Landau-Kleffner syndrome (LKS) are often refractory to pharmacotherapy, and resective surgery is rarely available due to the involvement of the vital cortex, multiple subpial transection (MST) was suggested to improve patient outcome and preserve cortical functions. Here, we analyze the reports about MST use in LKS, regarding its impact on seizures, language, behavior, EEG, cognition, and reported adverse effects. In conditions like LKS, surgery is not a popular treatment option and presumably should be considered sooner.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEpilepsy Behav
December 2020
Epilepsy Center Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Department of Neurology, University Hospital Frankfurt and Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany; LOEWE Center for Personalized Translational Epilepsy Research (CePTER), Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Objective: Due to supply shortage, amobarbital, the traditional anesthetic agent in Wada testing, was replaced by methohexital in many epilepsy centers. This study aimed to compare the two barbiturates to identify possible advantages or disadvantages of methohexital as compared to amobarbital with regard to the adequacy of language and memory testing during the Wada test.
Methods: Data from 75 patients with temporal lobe epilepsy who underwent bilateral Wada tests using either amobarbital (n = 53) or methohexital (n = 22) as part of presurgical work-up were analyzed retrospectively.
Epilepsia
August 2015
Department of Neurology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.
This study aimed to define the number and type of complications associated with the Wada test at an academic medical center for comparison to previous reports. We performed a retrospective review of medical records for patients who underwent the Wada test at the University of Michigan between April 1991 and June 2013. Information was collected regarding the angiography procedure and the immediate postoperative period to assess for both clinical and angiographic complications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Clin Neurophysiol
April 2015
*Department of Neurology, Columbia University Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, New York, New York, U.S.A.; †New York University Pre-Medicine Neural Science Program, New York, New York, U.S.A.; and ‡Yale University Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A.
The intracarotid amobarbital or Wada procedure is a component of the presurgical evaluation for refractory epilepsy, during which monitoring the onset and offset of transient anesthetic effects is critical. In this study, the authors characterized changes of 8 quantitative measures during 26 Wada tests, which included alpha, beta, theta, and delta powers, alpha/delta power ratio, beta/delta power ratio, median amplitude-integrated EEG, and 90% spectral edge frequency (SEF90), and correlated them with contralateral hemiplegia. The authors found that on the side of injection, delta and theta powers, alpha/delta power ratio, beta/delta power ratio, and SEF90 peaked within 1 minute after injection of 70 to 150 mg amobarbital or 4 to 7 mg methohexital.
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