Surgical resections offer the highest chance for seizure freedom for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy (DRE); however, over the last few years, there has been increased interest in exploring more minimally invasive surgical techniques, such as laser interstitial thermal therapy (LITT).

19 out of 29 patients (65.5%) were seizure free one year after LITT and 13/29 (44%) were seizure free at the last visit (mean FU duration = 49.5 months). Seizure freedom was 50% (12/24) among the TLE group and 20% (1/5) among the ETLE group at the last visit (p=0.343). Five patients (17%) had acute post-operative complications, which were reversible. Two patients (7%) reported memory and comprehension impairments. Gender, family history of epilepsy, handedness, etiology, and epilepsy duration were not significantly associated with seizure recurrence. Six patients underwent a re-operation, with five anterior temporal lobectomies and one additional ablation. Three of the ATL patients were seizure free after the operation, but the additional ablation did not result in seizure freedom.

LITT can potentially offer seizure freedom to carefully selected patients with DRE. Our study showed the TLE group had higher proportions of patients with seizure freedom in comparison to the ETLE group, but it was not statistically significant given the small sample size.