Advances in Epilepsy Surgery and Radiosurgery

American Journal of Neuroradiology

B. Sutter and O. Schrottner, eds. Vienna and New York: Springer-Verlag; 2002. 105 pages.

This volume, a supplement to Acta Neurochirurgica, is a compendium of papers on epilepsy surgery and radiosurgery dedicated to Professor Gerhard Pendl, the retiring chairman of neurosurgery at the University Hospital in Graz, Austria. The book begins with three review papers covering epilepsy research, presurgical evaluation in epilepsy, and surgical treatment of epilepsy. They are followed by four papers presenting data on radiosurgery and radiation therapy for epilepsy. Four papers on radiosurgery for tumors appear next, and the book concludes with one paper describing radiosurgery in an animal model of Parkinsonism.

The three review articles suffer from poor translation into English. There are frequent grammatical errors and some errors in spelling, and the stilted English prose makes for tedious reading. Although the content is comprehensive, the language difficulties of these reviews render them less than desirable. The reader interested in tutorial reviews of these subjects would do better to look for other sources. The other papers also suffer somewhat from the same language difficulties but present useful new clinical data.

The use of radiosurgery in epilepsy is still developmental, and the patient experiences presented in these papers are quite useful to someone specifically interested in this issue. The results reported in this group of papers are encouraging in that there may actually be a useful place for radiosurgery as treatment for some epileptics. Appropriately, the authors state that further investigation is necessary. The papers on radiosurgery of tumors also present significantly helpful information on clinical experiences, particularly with regard to the effects of radiosurgery on cranial nerves. Three of the tumor papers cover skull base tumors (meningioma, vestibular schwannoma, and glomus jugulare tumors), and the fourth deals with brain stem gliomas.

Illustrations in the clinical papers are adequate, although certainly not distinctive. Illustrations in the review papers are quite limited. References are adequate throughout the book.

This book will be of value to neuroradiologists who are interested in stereotactic radiosurgery. Radiosurgery involves multidisciplinary teams composed primarily of neurosurgeons, radiation oncologists, and radiation physicists, but in some centers diagnostic neuroradiologists play important roles in delineating the targets treated with the technique. The chapters dealing with presentation of clinical data on specific situations and topics are useful. The review chapters are difficult to get through because of the stilted English, and the interested radiologist could probably find more clear descriptions elsewhere.

In addition to neuroradiologists, this book will be useful to any physicians who are specifically interested in clinical data related to application of radiosurgery to epilepsy and to cranial nerve function after radiosurgical treatment of skull base tumors.