Assessment of surgical outcome.
Evaluation of outcome of epilepsy surgery is complex because of several factors. Epilepsy is itself a heterogeneous disorder. Different epilepsy centers encounter different referral mixes of patients. Institutions employ various methods for pre-operative evaluation and widely varying surgical techniques. Clear definitions of surgical success and reliable scales for its measurement are lacking. Few data are acquired prospectively and maintained in a format allowing inter-institutional collation of results. A better representation of surgical outcome could in the future be served by adherence to 4 principles: collection of common data in standard formats; comparison of like, rather than disparate, populations; maintenance of quantitative data in raw form; and measurement of outcome along several dimensions or scales. Psychosocial issues have been underemphasized in most prior analyses of outcome.
Lesser
R P
RP
Epilepsy Center, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205.
Fisher
R S
RS
Uematsu
S
S
D002540:Cerebral Cortex / Q000503:physiopathology; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery*; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D012189:Retrospective Studies