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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Neurol.

Sec. Epilepsy

Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fneur.2025.1619288

Seizure outcomes and complications associated with stereoelectroencephalography versus subdural electrodes for invasive monitoring in epilepsy surgery: A meta-analysis

Provisionally accepted
  • 1Department of Neurosurgery, School of Medicine, Washington University in St. Louis, Saint Louis, Missouri, United States
  • 2Department of Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
  • 3Department of Neurosurgery, Shool of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Alborz, Iran
  • 4Department of Neurosurgery, Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States
  • 5Department of Neurological Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

Introduction: Approximately 1.2% of people in the United States have epilepsy. Accurate identification of seizure origin is critical for clinical management. Yan et al. published a systematic review up to 2018 comparing SDE and SEEG (two invasive monitoring modalities) on clinical effectiveness and safety. However, meta-analysis was not performed, and multiple centers have published key SDE and SEEG data since 2018. Methods: We performed an updated literature search from Yan et al., through June 2023, of studies on patients who underwent SEEG or SDE for seizure focus localization. Inclusion criteria were: 1) randomized control trial, prospective or retrospective cohort study, or case series >5 patients, 2) at least one patient who underwent seizure focus resection, 3) outcomes of either seizure freedom or complications. Meta-analytic methods were utilized for data analysis. Results: An initial search resulted in 4,647 records; 81 studies were included, reflecting 3,482 SEEG and 2,816 SDE patients. Compared to SEEG, SDE exhibited similar operative time (164 vs. 185 minutes, p=0.50), inpatient monitoring time (8.7 vs. 8.9 days, p=0.81), and length of hospital stay (11.8 vs. 9.7 days, p=0.17). Seizure foci were identified in 95.4% of SEEG patients and 91.9% of SDE patients (p=0.25). A higher proportion of SDE patients underwent resective surgery (85.6% vs. 74.0%, p<0.01). Overall, 8.0% of SEEG patients and 10.6% of SDE patients experienced adverse events (p=0.22). Incidence of infection was higher for SDE (1.8%) than for SEEG (0.3%, p<0.01). Overall, 62.7% of SEEG patients and 63.4% of SDE patients achieved seizure freedom (p=0.87). Among studies which directly compared SEEG to SDE, there were no differences in seizure freedom attainment or overall morbidity. Conclusions: SEEG and SDE are safe and effective modalities to localize seizure foci. SDE was associated with higher rates of subsequent resection, but infection rate was higher for SDE than SEEG.

Keywords: SEEG, SDE, Seizure freedom, complications, Invasive monitoring

Received: 28 Apr 2025; Accepted: 31 Aug 2025.

Copyright: © 2025 Muthiah, Reecher, Maroufi, Mansouri and Abel. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

* Correspondence: Taylor J Abel, Department of Neurological Surgery, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, Pennsylvania, United States

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