Epileptic seizures curbed by electronic implants

Thursday, April 22, 1999 | 11:13 a.m.

Matthew King is wired for life, and so far it's working.

King, who suffered from severe epileptic seizures for 28 years, had a small generator termed a "pacemaker for the brain" implanted under the skin in his chest one year ago. Since then, King has not had a grand mal seizure.

The silver dollar-sized generator, called the NeuroCybernetic Prosthesis System, is placed just under the collar bone. A connecting wire is tunneled up under the skin to the lower neck and is wrapped around the vagus nerve.

The system stimulates the nerve at a regular frequency and inhibits electrical impulses that would spread through the brain and cause seizures.

"I used to have grand mal seizures, one a day," King said Tuesday at a programming checkup for the implant. "Now I have small seizures, about one every three months."

If King senses the onset of a seizure, he can use a magnet carried in a small pouch and worn around his neck to wave over the implant, stopping the seizure.

King was the first patient in Nevada to receive the implant. Now 22 other Nevada patients have the devices. Seven of them have been children under the age of 12, John Ramirez, territory manager for Cyberonics, said.

Nearly 4,000 devices have been implanted worldwide since the clinical trials began in 1988. The implant was FDA approved in July 1997.

As with medication, the procedure works well for some patients and not for others.

"There's no way of knowing who's really going to respond well," Dr. John Anson, the neurologist who installed the implants, said, adding that the devices help more than 50 percent of patients.

"Most patients don't have a complete cessation of their seizures," Dr. A. Randall Moody, King's neurologist added. "What we're looking for is reduction and intensity." The implant is the first new medical procedure for treating epilepsy in 100 years, Moody said. The procedure is often a last resort for people with severe seizures for whom medications have not worked.