[When should the pre-operative study of epileptic patients be carried out?]

There is great controversy as to the best moment for the preoperative study of patients with intractable epilepsy. In this study we attempt to give an answer to this question based on a review of the literature and personal experience. First various problems are analyzed: the epilepsy-lesion relationship; kinds of treatment and types of epilepsy: the concept of curative or palliative surgery, surgical syndromes, how long epilepsy has been present and the age of the patient at the time of operation. With these factors in mind we attempt to analyze the clinical situations and determine in each cases the optimum time to carry out any possible surgical treatment as a complement or 'part' of the medical treatment of these patients as a whole.