Epilepsy

Overview

Specialized care from recognized leaders

Established in 1992, the University Of Florida Comprehensive Epilepsy Program (UFCEP) is a National Association of Epilepsy Centers Level 4 (the highest level) epilepsy program.  The UFCEP brings together an interdisciplinary team of healthcare providers to deliver a full range of care for patients of all ages with epilepsy. These specialists also treat patients with related neurological conditions including seizure disorders, syncope, migraine, stroke and sleep disorders.

The UFCEP team is made up of professionals with varying backgrounds, all of whom specialize in diagnosing and treating epilepsy. They include adult and pediatric neurologists, adult and pediatric neurosurgeons, neuroradiologists, neuropsychologists and neuropathologists.

University of Florida Comprehensive Epilepsy Program Epilepsy surgery for seizures from 1992-2010

Every year, these experts treat approximately 7,500 adult and pediatric patient visits for seizure-related conditions. Since the program’s founding, the team has performed more than 1,400 surgeries for epilepsy – more than any other epilepsy treatment program in Florida. These surgeries include including implantation of intracranial electrodes, removal of brain areas where seizures originate (such as anterior temporal lobectomy), interruption of neural pathways by which seizures originate and spread (multiple subpial transection  and corpus callosotomy), and implantation of vagus nerve stimulators. The UF program was one of the original investigational sites for VNS (vagus nerve stimulation), which was FDA approved in 1997.  In addition, the University of Florida is one of only a few institutions that has used LINAC radiosurgery specifically for the treatment of focal seizures.

Over 550 people with intractable epilepsy have participated in our experimental drug and device studies since 1992 including Neuropace. There is also an active program for treating patients with the ketogenic diet. Although results vary depending upon the needed procedure and the underlying cause of the epilepsy, we have maintained an excellent success rate and low complication rate for the services that we provide.

Care for patients in the program, including diagnosis and treatment, is delivered primarily at Shands at UF and at the Malcolm Randall Veterans Administration Medical Center Epilepsy Center of Excellence.