[Predictors of verbal memory decline following temporal lobe surgery]. / Facteurs de risque du déclin mnésique verbal après chirurgie du lobe temporal.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Verbal memory decline can occur after temporal lobe surgery, especially when the left dominant hemisphere is involved. This potential functional risk must be evaluated before surgery. Among all factors that have been identified by several studies, the side of surgery (left dominant) and high baseline memory performance have been found to be predictive of verbal memory decline. Other factors such as etiology, sex, age at surgery, age at seizure onset, and duration may influence memory decline, but the results are not clear. Our purpose was to identify, in our population of patients and among all risk factors, those that may be predictive of verbal memory decline. METHODS: Logistic regression was used to examine the effect of each factor on the postoperative verbal memory index (WMS-R) in 101 patients who underwent a right (n=49) or left (n=52) anterior temporal lobe resection. RESULTS: In the group as a whole, 22 % of the patients demonstrated verbal memory decline of more than one standard deviation. The verbal memory decline was significantly related to surgery on the left side and a high level of verbal memory performance. These factors were significant predictors of decline. The other factors (etiology, sex, age at surgery, age at seizure onset, and duration) were not found to be predictive of this decline. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis demonstrates that the patients who are most at risk of undergoing verbal memory deterioration are those who undergo left-sided temporal resection and have good memory scores preoperatively. The contradictions found in the literature about the other factors could be explained by the diversity of the tests and criteria used to assess memory decline.

Functional MR imaging in assessment of language dominance in epileptic patients.

The value of functional MR Imaging (fMRI) in assessing language lateralization in epileptic patients candidate for surgical treatment is increasingly recognized. However few data are available for left-handed patients. Moreover determining factors for atypical dominance in patients investigated with contemporary imaging have not been reported. We studied 20 patients (14 males, 6 females; 9 right handed, 11 left handed) aged from 9 to 48 years, investigated for intractable partial epilepsy. Epileptic focus location was temporal in 14 cases, extratemporal in 6, and lateralized in the left hemisphere in 11/20. Hemispheric dominance for language was evaluated by both Wada test and fMRI using a silent word generation paradigm in all patients. Furthermore, a postictal speech test was performed in 15 patients. An fMRI language lateralization index was calculated from the number of activated pixels (Student's t test, P < 0.0001) in the right and left hemispheres. The Wada test showed a right hemispheric dominance in 8 patients (6 were left handed and 2 right handed) and a left hemispheric dominance in 12 patients (5 were left handed and 7 right handed). These results were concordant with clinical postictal examination in 11/15 patients (73%). Clinical status did not allow a conclusion about hemispheric dominance for the remaining 4 patients. FMRI was concordant with the Wada test in 19/20 cases. For one left-handed patient, fMRI showed bilateral activation, whereas the Wada test demonstrated a right hemispheric dominance. Right language lateralization was significantly correlated with left lateralized epilepsy (P < 0.05) but was not correlated with age at epilepsy onset, early brain injury (before 6 years), and lobar localization of epileptogenic focus. However the lack of a significant relationship between these factors and atypical language lateralization may be related to the small sample size.