Postoperative neuropsychological outcome in patients with mesial temporal lobe epilepsy in Argentina.

The aim of the present study is to compare pre- and postsurgical neuropsychological outcome in individuals suffering from mesial temporal lobe epilepsy (mTLE), in order to evaluate prognosis. The selected thirty-five patients had medically mTLE and had undergone an anterior temporal lobectomy (ATL). Neuropsychological evaluation was performed in three different stages: before ATL, 6 months after resection, and a year afterwards. Neuropsychological protocol evaluated attention, verbal memory, visual memory, executive function, language, intelligence, and handedness. There was a significant improvement (P = 0.030) in the group with visual memory deficit after surgery, whereas no changes were observed across patients with verbal memory deficit. No changes were observed in language after surgery. Executive function showed significant improvement 6 months after surgery (P = 0.035). Postoperative outcome of cognitive impairments depends on baseline neuropsychological status of the patients with TLE. In our case series, deficits found in patients with mTLE after ATL did not result in a subjective complaint.