An eight-year-old girl has become the first patient to undergo a type of epilepsy surgery involving platinum wire mesh, it has been confirmed.

For the past five years, Breanna Hopps has suffered between 40 and 60 seizures per day, which has severely restricted her ability to learn basic skills, the Orlando Sentinel reports.

However, this has now been reduced to between four and six after doctors at the Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children in Florida gave her a brain procedure, known as electrocorticography.

The surgery involves opening the skull and placing a platinum wire mesh with small squares on the brain, before sending the patient electric shocks to monitor seizure activity.

As a result of the process, which can last for up to two days, a hotspot seizure map is compiled, and this allowed neurosurgeons to remove brain tissue from seven hotspots in Breanna's brain.

She was allowed home four days after the surgery and has since started to watch television and read books as her personality continues to change in a positive way.

Her mother, Lori Hopps, told the news provider: "She used to come up to people and claw them. Now, she comes up and hugs you.

"It's amazing. The doctor said he would fix her. I think he finally did it."

Platinum has a number of uses in medical applications, such as in the treatment of various types of cancer.

Source:

Brain operation quiets the storm of seizures for epileptics: Platinum wire mesh (24/07/10)

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