Prognosis of epilepsies

The last book on the prognosis of epilepsies was written by Rodin in 1968. For the next 35 years, many original papers or chapters in textbooks have been published on this complex topic. Most of these endeavours, reflecting the clinician's highly detailed point of view are based on selected cases with little concern for the epidemiological context or upon the epidemiologist's population-based approach which tends to ignore important clinical details. Until quite recently, fundamental epidemiological aspects of epilepsy, as it is understood by clinicians, have not been explored, and clinicians viewed population-based epidemiology as relatively irrelevant to their daily practice.

It is for this reason that we organized this workshop which took place in Chamonix (France) during the last days of June 2002. During this workshop, epidemiologists and clinicians met and tried to synthesize their respective approaches and understanding of epilepsy.

This book is divided into two majors parts. Presentations in the first part address methodological issues regarding prognostic studies (including remission and mortality) as well as results from long-term cohort studies. The second part contains presentations on the clinical aspects and prognosis of several individual epilepsy syndromes as well as presentations about the prognosis of status epilepticus and the outcome of frontal and temporal lobe surgery. This book is the result of delightful, animated discussions and close collaborations between epidemiologists and clinicians. It is intented to provide an up-to-date overview of the field from the combined perspectives of epidemiology and clinical epileptology.