Hyderabad,  The Krishna Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS) Hospitals said it has reached a milestone of performing 1,000 epilepsy surgeries.

It claimed to be the first private healthcare provider in India to reach the mark. The announcement was made on the eve of the International Epilepsy Day, commemorated on the second Monday of February, each year.

All India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) and Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (Trivandrum) are the other two institutions to cross the 1,000 surgeries mark.

Epilepsy surgery is performed among children and adults in whom seizures could not be controlled through medications. The surgery is performed to remove an area of the brain where seizures occur regularly. These surgical procedures are not the first line of treatment; but are performed when at least two types of anti-seizures drugs would have failed to control seizures effectively.

"Nearly one-third of the patients have epilepsy that does not respond to medications, known as Drug-Resistant Epilepsy (DRE), and half of these patients are potential candidates for epilepsy surgery. Each patient under consideration for surgery participates in a thorough evaluation in the Comprehensive Epilepsy Programme before surgery to control seizures is offered," said Dr Sita Jayalakshmi, Senior Consultant Neurologist, KIMS Hospitals.

"The electroencephalograms (EEGs), of patient candidates, are recorded and analysed in the Epilepsy Monitoring Laboratory, which helps to classify the type and the locations of the observed seizures. In addition, advanced brain imaging studies including 3TMRI scans, PET scans, and SPECT scans may be used together with sophisticated analysis to determine which surgical procedure might be most beneficial."

According to Dr Manas Panigrahi, Senior Consultant Neurosurgeon, KIMS Hospitals, every year nearly 500,000 are born with epilepsy problems in India, and at least 10 per cent among them would require surgical intervention to cure the ailments. But only 700 epilepsy related surgeries are performed in the country each year. Only one in 1,000 patients who require surgery undergo epilepsy surgery in India.

"Expertise and advanced infrastructure including Neuro-Navigation, Stealth Imaging Systems, Intra-operative monitoring techniques and Robotic surgery, available at KIMS Hospitals helped in carrying out complex epilepsy surgeries with world-class success rate at very negligible complications. KIMS is the only hospital which undertakes epilepsy surgeries under Aarogyasri, which is a commitment this institution has towards the community," he said.

Congratulating the neurology and neurosurgery team for reaching this milestone, Dr. B. Bhaskar Rao, Managing Director, KIMS Hospitals said the hospital has the best neurology and neurosurgery team in the country, and by becoming the first ever hospital to perform 1000 epilepsy surgeries, physicians and surgeons at KIMS Hospitals have once again demonstrated they lead the path not just in providing best care to the patients, but also setting such unprecedented records.