Prognosis of chronic and newly diagnosed epilepsy: revisiting temporal aspects.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose is to review recent papers on the prognosis of epilepsy, with an emphasis on the importance of considering the temporal aspects of epilepsy.


RESULTS
The review considers five specific points: What is the chance of spontaneous remission without treatment (i.e. what is the natural history of untreated epilepsy)? What is the prognosis of epilepsy in newly diagnosed patients and how effective is therapy in previously drug-naïve patients? Does delaying treatment make long-term prognosis worse? Is the prognosis of chronic established epilepsy inevitably bad? Refractory epilepsy, pharmaco-resistance and the influence of time.


CONCLUSIONS
This paper reviews the recent evidence that has provided data about temporal aspects of prognosis in epilepsy and confirms the importance of taking a synoptical view of prognosis, incorporating temporal aspects, in making clinical prognostic predictions.
Shorvon
Simon
S
Institute of Neurology, UCL, London, UK. S.Shorvon@ion.ucl.ac.uk
Luciano
Anna Lisa
AL
D002908:Chronic Disease; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis*; D006801:Humans; D011379:Prognosis; D012008:Recurrence; D013702:Temporal Lobe / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013997:Time Factors