There’s good reason this year’s offering of the long-standing Cleveland Clinic Epilepsy Update CME course is subtitled “Recent Advances in Clinical Care” — the 2022 event is focused like never before on the latest tools in epilepsy management.

“An abundance of diagnostic and therapeutic advances in epilepsy care have come to light over the past three to five years, at the very same time that clinicians’ exposure to education about these tools has been limited by the pandemic,” says course director Ajay Gupta, MD, of Cleveland Clinic’s Epilepsy Center. “With this year’s course, we plan to make up for lost time with comprehensive updates across all major aspects of epilepsy care.”

Hybrid course over 2.5 days

He and a team of 20 expert faculty from premier international and U.S. centers, including Cleveland Clinic, will do so over two and a half days late this month, from Wed., Sept. 28, to Friday, Sept. 30.

For maximum access, the course is offered as a hybrid event — both virtually online and in person at the InterContinental Hotel & Bank of American Conference Center on Cleveland Clinic’s main campus in Cleveland.

Updates across all the essentials of epilepsy practice

Presentations will provide updates on the latest across a range of practical issues, including these examples:

• Genetic testing in epilepsy clinical practice, including results interpretation
• Autoimmune epilepsies, including state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment algorithms
• Epilepsy imaging, with an emphasis on clinical applications
• Various imaging modalities, including MRI in nonlesional epilepsies, MEG, and PET/SPECT
• Evaluation for epilepsy surgery
• Synthesizing multi-modal data for presurgical planning

The course’s second day is focused almost exclusively on updates in various aspects of treatment, including presentations devoted to the following:

• Medical treatment of partial-onset seizures and primary generalized seizures, with special attention to newer medications
• Treatment of orphan diseases and epileptic encephalopathies, with discussion of therapies beyond current anti-seizure medications
• Epilepsy surgery
• Medical and surgical treatment of neurocutaneous disorders
• Treatment of autoimmune epilepsies, including indications for immune-modulating therapies
• Treatment of acute repetitive seizures and status epilepticus

Additional highlights include talks on advances in seizure detection and SUDEP prevention, SEEG, SEEG-guided resection, resective surgery and laser ablative therapies, and neuromodulation in epilepsy.

“We’ll be encompassing epilepsy across the age spectrum, from infancy to adulthood,” says Dr. Gupta, “with particular attention to the diagnostic evaluation of complex epilepsies.”

Deep dives designed for all epilepsy clinicians

The program’s 60-minute presentations allow detailed exploration of topics, including at least 10 minutes of Q&A with expert faculty. The content is designed for a range of clinicians and trainees in adult and pediatric epilepsy care — neurologists, epileptologists, neurosurgeons, midlevel providers, and neurology and neurosurgery residents and fellows.

The activity has been designated for a maximum of 20.25 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Registration and full course details are available at ccfcme.org/epilepsyupdate22.