OBJECTIVE-MEASURE OF TREATMENT OUTCOME IN EPILEPSY

Treatment outcome in epilepsy is too often a vague, ill-defined subjec tive measure. Based on a proposal of Shoffer and Temkin (1987) of ''ti me to kth seizure'' as a measure of seizure frequency, we devised the formula: % improvement = 100 - [time to X seizure (i) x 100]/[time to X seizure (f)]. This formula provides an objective measure of treatm ent outcome and should prove useful in clinical settings and research. We offer examples of practical applications of the formula.