Simon Shorvon: Handbook of epilepsy treatment, 2nd edition

Excerpt

This is the second edition of a well-received book on the treatment of epilepsy in children and adults that the author published in 2000 with the aim of summarizing the various treatments for epilepsy in a concise, but complete, manner. Although the main emphasis is placed on its use in the clinical practice to provide a rational treatment for epilepsy, the text offers updated scientific information for evidence-based therapeutic decisions whenever these decisions are possible. For those concerns regarding surgical treatment, especially where the long-term effects and benefits of treatment are not sufficiently established, the author honestly acknowledges the possibility for the book to be influenced by his own prejudices and anecdotal experience. Possible examples are the high figures reported for postoperative epilepsy and the persisting insistence on the occurrence of superficial hemosiderosis after hemispherectomy in spite of the increasing number of recently published experiences which appear to demonstrate the rarity or even the absence of such a complication. A paragraph is devoted to postoperative epilepsy in the first chapter of the book. Pediatric neurosurgeons are probably going to be surprised by the description of the authors of a high incidence of epilepsy following neurosurgical operations, which is difficult to compare to what is commonly observed in clinical practice. Unfortunately, it is difficult to evaluate the experiences from which the figures reported in the text were obtained due to the lack of precise cross-references. …