Several studies before the 1970's about patients with epilepsy reported bad prognosis. This paper was developed to know the knowledge about it at nowadays. This was made by a narrative review mainly based on populational prospective/retrospective cohort study on patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy, follow-up period at least of 10 years, outcome variable being remission or recurrence of seizures, besides death. It is also considered the pattern of remission-relapse or worsening of epilepsy in people with pharmacoresistant epilepsy. In most people with newly diagnosed epilepsy, mainly idiopathic etiology, the long-term prognosis of epilepsy is favorable, but epilepsy remains active in approximately 30% and becomes intractable in approximately 10%. It is also recognized that people with epilepsy have an increased risk of premature death, being the highest risk soon after onset of seizures.
epilepsy; prognosis; long-term follow-up; epidemiology
