Photo Credit: Jim Doberman

For patients with epilepsy, having public health insurance and a shorter travel time to an epilepsy center may influence receipt of timely surgical treatment, according to results published in Epilepsia. Ben Shofty, MD, PhD, and colleagues examined treatment intervals, demographics, and clinical characteristics of patients with epilepsy who received referrals for surgical evaluation at a Level 4 epilepsy center. Among 185 patients, the median (1st–3rd quartile) intervals seen were 10.1 years from epilepsy diagnosis to drug-resistant epilepsy diagnosis, 16.7 years from epilepsy diagnosis to surgery, and 1.4 years from drug-resistant epilepsy diagnosis to surgery. Patients who traveled farther for treatment showed significantly shorter median times from epilepsy diagnosis to drug-resistant epilepsy diagnosis (P<0.01) and epilepsy diagnosis to surgery (P<0.05). Patients with public health insurance had a significantly longer time from drug-resistant epilepsy diagnosis to surgery (P<0.001).