THE ECONOMIC COST OF EPILEPSY - A REVIEW

Epilepsy is the most prevalent chronic neurologic condition. in develo ped countries, its incidence is 30-50 per 100 000 population per year and the prevalence is approximately 5-8 cases per 1 000 population. Th e rapid growth of health care expenditures has led to increased intere st in economic evaluation of health care programs. We reviewed studies on the costs of epilepsy to assess the significance of their quantita tive results, through a specific scheme of analysis. The main findings of our study are that a general consensus on cost of illness evaluati on is still remote and many studies lack technical details, making dif ficult any useful comparison of results. New efforts should be realize d to achieve a major degree of standardization in methodological proce sses.