Newswise Dr. Paul H. Crandall, who co-founded the UCLA Department of Neurosurgery and pioneered surgical approaches still used today to treat stubborn epileptic seizures, died March 15 from complications related to pneumonia at UCLA Medical CenterSanta Monica. He was 89.
"Paul was the father of UCLA's epilepsy program," said Dr. Neil Martin, chair of neurosurgery at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "His clinical work laid the foundation for our current strategies to treat epileptic seizures, and his scientific research informs neurosurgeons' treatment of epilepsy today."
The youngest of seven children, Crandall was born to Arthur and Ellen Crandall on Feb. 15, 1923, in Essex Junction, Vt. He looked up to his siblings: One was a physician, two were attorneys, two owned businesses and one became food editor for the Boston Globe. According to Crandall's wife, Barbara, his older brother who was a surgeon encouraged him to pursue a career in neurosurgery.
Crandall graduated cum laude and earned his medical degree from the University of Vermont in 1946, then completed his residency training in neurosurgery at the University of Illinois in Chicago in 1952. There, he met his wife, now a professor emeritus of pediatrics and genetics at UCLA, who was in residency training at the same time.
In 1944, Crandall enlisted in the U.S. Army and served for two years. After the service paid for his medical education, he enlisted again in the Army Medical Corps in 1952 and was stationed for two years in Frankfurt, Germany, where he served as chief of neurosurgery at the military hospital.
In 1954, Crandall joined the UCLA School of Medicine as one of three founding members of the neurosurgery division, which was upgraded to a department in 2008. He taught and conducted clinical research for 32 years, retiring in 1988 as a professor emeritus.
Moved by his epileptic patients' suffering, Crandall launched in 1960 UCLA's first research program in the surgical treatment of the brain disorder, which provokes sudden and repeated seizures that can damage the brain, causing cognitive impairment and memory loss. While anti-convulsant drugs controlled epileptic seizures in most people, the medications didn't work in up to 40 percent of patients.
Funded by one of the longest running UCLA grants from the National Institutes of Health, Crandall performed or supervised surgeries on more than 300 epileptic patients, not including those he treated in the clinic. He developed experimental techniques for identifying the brain region causing epileptic seizures that didn't respond to drugs an approach now standard at all major medical centers.
He achieved this by using electroencephalography (EEG), a test that tracks brain waves to uncover abnormal electrical patterns. Crandall was the first to pinpoint the origins of epileptic seizures by implanting EEG wires directly into the brain over several days to record electrical activity during spontaneous seizures.
Crandall next worked with UCLA neurologist Dr. Richard Walter to develop the first EEG telemetry unit, which allowed prolonged recording of brain activity to capture spontaneous seizures in patients with epilepsy. Later coupled with continuous video recording, the technique enables physicians to correlate how a patient behaves during seizures with simultaneous brain activity. Hospitals worldwide now use EEG telemetry to test patients whose epileptic seizures don't respond to drugs.
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Paul H. Crandall, 89, UCLA Physician Pioneered Surgery to Treat Epilepsy