[Advances in the treatment of epilepsy: status epilepticus]

The complexity of the treatment of status epilepticus (SE) is due to the wide variety of forms of clinical presentation. In this review we wish to emphasize that satisfactory management of SE requires a system which takes account of the successive phases of the gravity of the electroclinical course of SE and the different types of SE according to the electroclinical semiology of the seizure.

The concepts and classifications which, in current epileptology, are used in SE are mainly based on criteria developed at three international symposia: in Marseilles in 1962 and Santa Monica, California, in 1979 and 1997. Current knowledge permits distinction of different therapeutic periods depending on the chronology of each SE and to classify the SE according to the type of seizures, age of the patient and underlying pathology.

The classifications described permit the standardization of treatment: preventive measure in high-risk patients; immediate and in situ treatment during the prodromal phase; three parallel lines of action--differential diagnosis, general measures and antiepileptic treatment--during the initial phase; measures in hospital emergencies and in the Intensive Care Unit when the SE is at a fully established phase; special measures, including induction of anaesthesia in the refractory phase; transition to long-term treatment, recovery of autonomy by the patient and long-term management in the phases following remission of the SE. The standardization proposed may perhaps serve as a basis for the future development of guidelines.