‘Iker had part of his brain isolated so that he would not have epileptic seizures, and since then, we have gained peace of mind’

For seven years, Iker has had epileptic seizures practically every day. ‘Iker was 24 days old when neurologists discovered he had a brain injury,’ explains Auxi, the boy’s mother. ‘The doctors noticed that his head circumference was growing more than normal and performed an ultrasound scan. That's when they discovered he had a cyst. At that time, they decided not to operate and to monitor him. Iker began to receive early care. He has always been a child who has required special education, but it wasn't until he was seven that he began to have absence seizures."

Iker has had recurrent episodes of this type of epileptic seizure, in which the child loses consciousness but does not suffer convulsions. The doctors who had been treating him at a hospital in the Basque Country, where the child lived until his family decided to move to Catalonia for professional reasons in 2019, had considered various options: placing a valve to relieve cranial pressure and even performing open surgery to remove the focus of his epilepsy, which did not respond to medication.

When Iker was referred to SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital, he was offered an alternative: to isolate the area of the brain affected by epilepsy, which was very extensive and occupied the posterior quadrant, from the rest of the brain using laser ablation. This technique is less aggressive and safer than traditional craniotomy surgery (opening of the skull) because it allows the patient to recover in a shorter period of time and causes less aesthetic damage.

The SJD Barcelona Children's Hospital is the first and only hospital in Spain to use laser ablation as an alternative to craniotomy for performing temporo-parieto-occipital (TPO) disconnections. Since 2005, it has a Refractory Epilepsy Unit, specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, and is a centre of reference in Spain for the surgical treatment of refractory epilepsy in children.

The family had complete confidence in the medical team's judgement. ‘When I was young, they had to open my skull to insert a valve because I had tuberculous meningitis, so when the doctor suggested this surgery, I didn't hesitate,’ says José, the father. ‘The doctor explained everything very clearly and gave us a lot of confidence and offered us better prospects for life,’ adds the mother.

On 25 March 2022, Iker went into surgery. The operation lasted more than ten hours and was a success. Since then, the young man has not had any seizures. "Thanks to the operation Iker had, he no longer has epileptic seizures. We have gained peace of mind. Before, we were more afraid of him going on school trips in case he had a seizure during the outing. It was also common for us to end up in the emergency room frequently. Now we are more at ease,‘ explains Auxi. ’We are very grateful for the good treatment that doctors Santiago Candela and Javier Aparicio have given Iker and us, and for the good results of the operation," she adds.