St. Peter's Hospital Epilepsy & Sleep Center marks one year: 680 studies and 40 surgeries ease the treatment bottleneck

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Treatment starts after same-day reading... leading better care for intractable epilepsy and sleep disorders

St. Peter's Hospital Epilepsy & Sleep Center eased the 'treatment bottleneck' in just one year

"Over 680 video-EEG epilepsy studies and more than 40 surgeries since opening"

- In just one year: over 680 video-EEG studies, 300 sleep studies and more than 40 epilepsy surgeries

- Korea's first one-stop care system… ultra-fast linkage from testing to treatment and surgery, with EEG technologists on site 24 hours

- Leading better care for intractable epilepsy through an open sharing system, patient support and stronger international exchange

▲ EEG and sleep study monitoring room

St. Peter's Hospital's Epilepsy & Sleep Center is emerging as Korea's key hub for intractable epilepsy and sleep disorders. 

St. Peter's Hospital (President Yoon, Kangjun) announced 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. 

Hong Seung-bong, Director of the Epilepsy & Sleep Center at St. Peter’s Hospital, 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. Since last year he has also 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. 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. 

Center director Hong Seung-bong says, "Our goal at the St. Peter's Hospital Epilepsy & Sleep Center is to provide epilepsy patients with world-class epilepsy care." 

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 making a major contribution to improving intractable epilepsy care in Korea. The center also collaborates on brain imaging and on epilepsy care and surgery with medical teams at Severance Hospital, Gangnam Severance Hospital, Seoul National University Bundang Hospital and Inje University Haeundae Paik Hospital.

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. In addition, Center Director Hong Seung-bong runs an epilepsy helpline, providing comprehensive support to epilepsy patients and their families nationwide in areas including medical care, social welfare, psychological counseling and social services. 

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 at St. Peter’s Hospital, 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 added, “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.”