Racial disparities in the use of surgical treatment for intractable temporal lobe epilepsy

Objective: To compare the use of surgical treatment for epilepsy among different ethnic and racial groups with surgically remediable temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). Methods: The authors used multiple logistic regression analysis to model the use of anterior temporal lobectomy in a cross-sectional study of video-EEG monitoring discharge data among residents of Alabama and surrounding states discharged from the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital between July 1998 and January 2003 with a primary diagnosis of TLE. Results: Of 432 patients diagnosed with TLE, 130 had evidence of mesial temporal sclerosis on MRI studies. Seventy patients underwent surgery; African Americans were less likely than non-Hispanic whites to undergo surgical treatment (odds ratio, 0.3; 95% CI, 0.2 to 0.8). After potential demographic ( age, education, and sex), socioeconomic, medical insurance coverage, and clinical confounders ( bitemporal seizure onset) were controlled, African Americans had a 60% less chance to receive surgery than non-Hispanic whites. Conclusions: There are disparities in the use of surgical treatment for temporal lobe epilepsy. Race appears to be an influential factor related to such disparities.