Jaipur/Jodhpur: AIIMS Jodhpur has successfully treated four patients with a rare, drug-resistant form of epilepsy known as “laughter epilepsy” or gelastic seizures, using a minimally invasive procedure that avoided open brain surgery.The patients — three children aged 5, 8 and 9, and a 25-year-old man — suffered repeated, uncontrollable laughing episodes caused by hypothalamic hamartoma, a lesion deep in the brain. In some cases, they had 10 to 20 seizures a day, severely affecting daily life.Doctors used computer-guided stereotactic radiofrequency ablation to destroy the seizure-causing lesion through an incision of about one inch. All four patients recovered without complications, were discharged within 48 hours and are now seizure-free.“The laughter that occurs in this condition is not normal joyful laughter; rather, it is caused by abnormal electrical activity in the brain. Often, this laughter appears strange, artificial, or completely out of context with the situation,” Dr Mohit Agrawal, associate professor of neurosurgery at AIIMS Jodhpur, told TOI.Doctors traced the disorder to the hypothalamus, where a hamartoma or similar lesion was triggering the seizures. AIIMS Jodhpur said it is now the only hospital in the state and the second AIIMS in the country to offer this specialised minimally invasive procedure.
