St. Peter's Hospital Epilepsy & Sleep Center eases the ’treatment bottleneck’ in one year
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Gangnam St. Peter's Hospital 26-05-07 11:10Main content
[Baeksesidae = Reporter Bae Ji-young] The Epilepsy & Sleep Center at St. Peter's Hospital is emerging as a key hub hospital for intractable epilepsy and sleep disorders in Korea.
St. Peter's Hospital announced on the 7th that, within one year of opening its Epilepsy & Sleep Center, it has performed some 680 video EEG studies and more than 40 epilepsy operations. Given that around 150 epilepsy operations are performed nationwide each year, this is a remarkable result for a single center.
St. Peter's Hospital opened its Epilepsy & Sleep Center in April last year with the goal of building a ‘fast track for specialized epilepsy treatment’. The center is led by professor-level physicians including Hong Seung-bong, a neurology specialist serving as president of the Korean Epilepsy Center Society and head of the Epilepsy Support Center, and neurosurgeon Yoon, Kangjun, President of the hospital. It is the first in Korea to offer a one-stop system covering testing, admission, surgery and treatment.
In April this year the center expanded its video EEG and sleep study rooms to seven, giving it one of the largest facilities of its kind in Korea, and equipped them with advanced testing systems including Cadwell and Natus NDX.
Six dedicated EEG and sleep technologists are on site 24 hours a day in three shifts, so testing can be performed during a patient's usual sleeping hours, and same-day interpretation allows treatment to begin the following day.
Through specialized education and training, the EEG technologists have EEG analysis skills at the level of a resident physician, and they can also interpret state-of-the-art magnetoencephalography (MEG) used for epilepsy surgery.
On the strength of these capabilities, the center is rapidly building a clinical track record, performing more than 950 video EEG and sleep studies in one year. Video EEG for diagnosing epilepsy is carried out at an average of 60 cases a month, and drug therapy and surgery following diagnosis are also being performed actively.
St. Peter's Hospital said that Hong Seung-bong, Director of its Epilepsy & Sleep Center, administers the new drug cenobamate to more patients with intractable epilepsy than any other physician in Korea, and successfully introduced Buccolam (oromucosal midazolam), an out-of-hospital rescue medication for epilepsy, to the country.
It added that since last year he has been the only participant in Korea in the temporal lobe epilepsy gene therapy clinical trial led by Professor Kang Joon of the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States, and that in July this year, in collaboration with Professor Junming of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University in China, he will begin performing laser epilepsy surgery (LITT), which is not yet available in Korea.
The open sharing system, the first of its kind in Korea, is also producing results. When other hospitals and clinics refer patients for video EEG and sleep studies, the Epilepsy & Sleep Center at St. Peter's Hospital operates a cooperative framework that links same-day admission, testing and sharing of results in a single rapid, one-stop pathway.
Since opening, the center has performed testing and coordinated follow-up treatment for many patients referred from other hospitals, including Asan Medical Center. By actively sharing clinical and surgical cases with other hospitals, it is also making a major contribution to improving intractable epilepsy care in Korea.
The hospital is also actively engaged in support activities for epilepsy patients. St. Peter's Hospital provides caregiving cost support for video EEG testing for low-income epilepsy patients and operates a 60-million-won fund to help cover surgical costs for patients with intractable epilepsy.
St. Peter's Hospital says it will keep strengthening the expertise of the dedicated medical team at the Epilepsy & Sleep Center and advance its testing and treatment capabilities to maintain and develop the center as one of the best in Korea. To that end, it has set up video EEG and sleep study rooms where both patients and their families can stay comfortably.
Hong Seung-bong, Director of the Epilepsy & Sleep Center, said, “The most important goal of the Epilepsy & Sleep Center at St. Peter's Hospital is to close the gaps in epilepsy care in Korea and improve access to treatment.” He emphasized, “In particular, we aim to build a system in which patients with intractable epilepsy can receive testing and treatment in the shortest possible time, and in which patients with sleep disorders undergo thorough, accurate sleep studies that follow their usual sleep habits, with flawless interpretation of the results.”
St. Peter's Hospital announced on the 7th that, within one year of opening its Epilepsy & Sleep Center, it has performed some 680 video EEG studies and more than 40 epilepsy operations. Given that around 150 epilepsy operations are performed nationwide each year, this is a remarkable result for a single center.
St. Peter's Hospital opened its Epilepsy & Sleep Center in April last year with the goal of building a ‘fast track for specialized epilepsy treatment’. The center is led by professor-level physicians including Hong Seung-bong, a neurology specialist serving as president of the Korean Epilepsy Center Society and head of the Epilepsy Support Center, and neurosurgeon Yoon, Kangjun, President of the hospital. It is the first in Korea to offer a one-stop system covering testing, admission, surgery and treatment.
In April this year the center expanded its video EEG and sleep study rooms to seven, giving it one of the largest facilities of its kind in Korea, and equipped them with advanced testing systems including Cadwell and Natus NDX.
Six dedicated EEG and sleep technologists are on site 24 hours a day in three shifts, so testing can be performed during a patient's usual sleeping hours, and same-day interpretation allows treatment to begin the following day.
Through specialized education and training, the EEG technologists have EEG analysis skills at the level of a resident physician, and they can also interpret state-of-the-art magnetoencephalography (MEG) used for epilepsy surgery.
On the strength of these capabilities, the center is rapidly building a clinical track record, performing more than 950 video EEG and sleep studies in one year. Video EEG for diagnosing epilepsy is carried out at an average of 60 cases a month, and drug therapy and surgery following diagnosis are also being performed actively.
St. Peter's Hospital said that Hong Seung-bong, Director of its Epilepsy & Sleep Center, administers the new drug cenobamate to more patients with intractable epilepsy than any other physician in Korea, and successfully introduced Buccolam (oromucosal midazolam), an out-of-hospital rescue medication for epilepsy, to the country.
It added that since last year he has been the only participant in Korea in the temporal lobe epilepsy gene therapy clinical trial led by Professor Kang Joon of the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States, and that in July this year, in collaboration with Professor Junming of the Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University in China, he will begin performing laser epilepsy surgery (LITT), which is not yet available in Korea.
The open sharing system, the first of its kind in Korea, is also producing results. When other hospitals and clinics refer patients for video EEG and sleep studies, the Epilepsy & Sleep Center at St. Peter's Hospital operates a cooperative framework that links same-day admission, testing and sharing of results in a single rapid, one-stop pathway.
Since opening, the center has performed testing and coordinated follow-up treatment for many patients referred from other hospitals, including Asan Medical Center. By actively sharing clinical and surgical cases with other hospitals, it is also making a major contribution to improving intractable epilepsy care in Korea.
The hospital is also actively engaged in support activities for epilepsy patients. St. Peter's Hospital provides caregiving cost support for video EEG testing for low-income epilepsy patients and operates a 60-million-won fund to help cover surgical costs for patients with intractable epilepsy.
St. Peter's Hospital says it will keep strengthening the expertise of the dedicated medical team at the Epilepsy & Sleep Center and advance its testing and treatment capabilities to maintain and develop the center as one of the best in Korea. To that end, it has set up video EEG and sleep study rooms where both patients and their families can stay comfortably.
Hong Seung-bong, Director of the Epilepsy & Sleep Center, said, “The most important goal of the Epilepsy & Sleep Center at St. Peter's Hospital is to close the gaps in epilepsy care in Korea and improve access to treatment.” He emphasized, “In particular, we aim to build a system in which patients with intractable epilepsy can receive testing and treatment in the shortest possible time, and in which patients with sleep disorders undergo thorough, accurate sleep studies that follow their usual sleep habits, with flawless interpretation of the results.”