@article{b4430ceb8f1f49c4b4cf0a818b1b45e0,
title = "A collaborative effort to establish a comprehensive epilepsy program in Peru",
abstract = "We report the achievements obtained, over a period of 4. years, by the collaborative partnering effort of the Epilepsy Program at Western University in Canada and the Instituto of Ciencias Neurologicas in Lima, Peru, building an epilepsy program in Peru.",
keywords = "Epilepsy, Epilepsy surgery, Peru",
author = "Burneo, {Jorge G.} and Delgado, {Jose C.} and Steven, {David A.} and Vasquez, {Carlos M.} and Alonso-Vanegas, {Mario A.} and Cavazos, {Jose E.} and Lizardo Mija and Willy Zapata and Lucio Portilla",
note = "Funding Information: With the support of the “Partnering Epilepsy Centers in America” program (PECA), supported by the North American Commission of the ILAE, the Western University Epilepsy Program in London, Canada, paired with the Department of Epilepsy at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Neurologicas (INCN) in Lima, Peru. The INCN, located in Lima, is a major referral center for the treatment of neurological conditions within the public system. It is a highly specialized center with more than 30 neurologists, most of them with formal subspecialty training, as well as 10 neurosurgeons. The center has independent wards for the care of movement disorders, neurovascular diseases, neuro-infections, and epilepsy, among others. The Canadian Epilepsy Program made an initial contact with the INCN in 2008. Since then, these two institutions have been working together through workshops, mutual visits to Peru and London, and online review of cases, among other activities (See ). The main objectives of this partnership have been realized: the latest one being the successful completion of the first ever temporal lobectomy in Peru in a patient with medically-intractable temporal lobe epilepsy due to hippocampal sclerosis. Table 1 The initial activity consisted of a workshop on video-EEG, carried in Lima in August of 2008. This workshop bolstered the request made by the INCN to the Peruvian Ministry of Health to obtain a dedicated bed with video-EEG for the epilepsy ward. The bed was completely functional by August of 2009. In the interim, a neurologist from the INCN (Dr. Jose C. Delgado) traveled to London, Ontario for a 3-month rotation. During this period, he was exposed to all academic activities and was actively involved with the team in charge of the 8-bed epilepsy unit. Around the same time, Dr. Carlos M. Vasquez, recently graduated from the neurosurgery program at the INCN, obtained a scholarship to complete an epilepsy surgery fellowship at the Instituto de Neurologia y Neurocirugia, in Mexico City. He spent one year there under the supervision of Dr. Mario Alonso-Vanegas. Simultaneously, Dr. Willy Zapata, a junior neurologist at the INCN, obtained another scholarship to attend the LASSE (Latin American Summer School in Epilepsy) in Brazil. 3 ",
year = "2013",
month = jan,
doi = "10.1016/j.yebeh.2012.11.006",
language = "Ingl{\'e}s",
volume = "26",
pages = "96--99",
journal = "Epilepsy and Behavior",
issn = "1525-5050",
publisher = "Academic Press Inc.",
number = "1",
}