Surgeons at GOSH (Great Ormond Street Hospital) mounted a rechargeable device to his skull and attached it to electrodes deep in the brain to reduce seizure activity.
According to GOSH, this is the first UK clinical trial measuring this type of treatment for children with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy, and involved multiple teams from research and development, surgery, nursing, neurology, imaging, anaesthetics, neurophysiology and engineering.
Since the procedure, Oran’s daytime seizures have decreased by 80 per cent.
The CADET (Children’s Adaptive Deep brain stimulation for Epilepsy Trial) pilot will now recruit three additional patients, before 22 patients take part in a further trial funded by GOSH Charity and LifeArc.
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In a statement, Martin Tisdall, consultant paediatric neurosurgeon at GOSH and Honorary Associate Professor at UCL, said: “Every single day we see the life-threatening and life-limiting impacts of uncontrollable epilepsy. It can make school, hobbies or even just watching a favourite TV show utterly impossible.
“For Oran and his family, epilepsy completely changed their lives and so to see him riding a horse and getting his independence back is absolutely astounding. We couldn’t be happier to be part of their journey.
“Deep brain stimulation brings us closer than ever before to stopping epileptic seizures for patients who have very limited effective treatment options. We are excited to build the evidence base to demonstrate the ability of deep brain stimulation to treat paediatric epilepsy and hope in years to come it will be a standard treatment we can offer.”
Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a treatment involving surgery to insert a small device which stimulates specific parts of the brain.
Unlike other DBS devices which are mounted on the chest with wires running up the neck to the brain, this device is mounted on the skull, so the leads are less likely to break as the child grows.
This device is also rechargeable through headphones and does not require surgery to replace it every three to five years.
Lead engineer Professor Tim Denison, Oxford University, said: “Oran is the first child in the world to receive this investigational device and we are extremely pleased that it has had such a positive benefit for him and his family.”
The device targets the thalamus, which is a hub for electrical signals in the brain. It is hoped that the device will block electrical pathways and stop seizures from spreading. The device is also said to have settings for optimisation towards seizure patterns, which although not utilised in this trial, could be used in the future for patients with LGS.
The CADET Pilot is funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering and sponsored by University College London. It is a collaboration between GOSH, UCL Institute of Child Health, UCL, King’s College London, Oxford University and Amber Therapeutics. All research at GOSH is supported by the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre.
The second phase of the trial will be jointly funded through GOSH Charity and LifeArc’s Translational Research Accelerator Grants.
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