When a child has severe epilepsy, families need more than treatment: they need a clear diagnosis, an expert second opinion, and a team offering the full spectrum of modern care. The University Children’s Hospital Zurich is Switzerland’s largest children’s hospital and one of Europe’s leading centres for specialised paediatric care. In our new hospital, children and families are cared for in a calm, family centred environment designed around safety, comfort, and recovery.
Our paediatric epilepsy programme is the largest in Switzerland and among the largest in Europe. Care is provided by internationally recognised paediatric epilepsy experts who lead international ILAE surveys, develop consensus statements and clinical guidelines, and conduct benchmark studies in paediatric epilepsy surgery. This international leadership is brought directly to each child’s diagnostic evaluation, treatment planning, and long-term care.
We provide comprehensive care for infants, children, and adolescents with difficult-to-treat epilepsy, developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, and complex structural brain disorders. Families from the Middle East have access to a specialised multidisciplinary team, including paediatric epileptologists, neuropsychologists, neuroradiologists, neurosurgeons, intensive care specialists, rehabilitation experts, specialised nurses, and international patient coordinators.
Early evaluation and advanced diagnostics
Epilepsy surgery is no longer considered a last resort. For carefully selected children with focal structural epilepsy, surgery can offer sustained seizure freedom, reduce antiseizure medication burden, and improve development, behaviour, learning, and quality of life. Early referral is important: if seizures continue despite two appropriate antiseizure medications, or if a child has a clearly defined lesion in a surgically accessible brain area, expert presurgical evaluation should be considered without delay. Young children, including infants, can also benefit from early assessment in experienced paediatric centres.
In Zurich, we provide the full spectrum of modern paediatric presurgical evaluation: high-resolution epilepsy MRI, long-term video-EEG monitoring, advanced EEG analysis, PET, functional imaging, neuropsychological and developmental assessment, genetic evaluation, and multidisciplinary case review. When noninvasive tests are not sufficient, we offer invasive monitoring with stereoelectroencephalography (SEEG), using an individually tailored strategy to define the seizure onset zone while preserving critical functions such as language, motor function, and vision.
Personalised surgical treatment
Our surgical expertise covers the full range of modern paediatric epilepsy surgery. Depending on the child’s diagnosis, this may include focal resections, lesionectomies, temporal and extratemporal surgery, multilobar surgery, hemispherotomy, corpus callosotomy, disconnection procedures, and minimally invasive approaches such as SEEG-guided radiofrequency thermocoagulation and laser ablation in selected cases. We treat focal cortical dysplasia, low-grade epilepsy-associated tumours, hypothalamic hamartoma, hemimegalencephaly, polymicrogyria, Sturge-Weber syndrome, tuberous sclerosis complex, Rasmussen encephalitis, vascular lesions, and MRI-negative epilepsy.
Every recommendation is personalised and discussed with parents in clear language. Referral for presurgical evaluation does not mean that surgery is inevitable; it means that the child’s epilepsy is analysed in depth so that the safest treatment pathway can be identified. When surgery is appropriate, the goal is not only seizure control, but also to support cognitive development, independence, schooling, and family life.
Personal support for international families
International families are supported from first contact through to follow-up care. The International Office helps with medical document review, appointments, cost estimates, visa and travel questions, accommodation, Arabic translation services, and coordination with referring physicians at home, including structured reports to ensure continuity of care.
For families seeking a second opinion or advanced treatment, Zurich offers internationally recognised expertise, advanced diagnostics, surgical technology, and compassionate paediatric care in one specialised centre, with the child and family at the centre of every decision.
How to find the University Children’s Hospital Zurich
Send medical documents in English and, if available, imaging files to international@kispi.uzh.ch or call
+41 44 249 28 28.
- You will receive a specialist assessment and a transparent overview of costs.
- The International Office provides support with visas, travel, and accommodation.
- An experienced team will welcome you on site, plan your treatment individually, and support you throughout your stay.
