New scans offer hope for hard-to-treat epilepsy

Researchers have developed a new ultra-powerful scanning technique that could make surgery possible for epilepsy patients whose seizures do not respond to drug treatments.

- Anna Bawden

Globally, about 50 million people have epilepsy. About 360,000 people in the UK have focal epilepsy, which causes recurring seizures in a specific part of the brain.

Many patients successfully treat their condition with medication, but for more than 100,000 patients symptoms do not improve with drugs, leaving surgery as the only option.

If surgeons can see the lesions on MRI scans, this can double the chances of the patient being free of seizures after surgery. Finding brain lesions can be tricky, however.