Epilepsy and evidence-based medicine: a vote of confidence in expert opinion from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence?

In the UK, guidelines on the management of childhood epilepsy have just been published by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). These, it is claimed, are evidence based. One definition of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental medicine and child neurology 2005-03, Vol.47 (3), p.204-206
Main Authors: Ferrie, Colin D, Livingston, John H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Annotation
Child
Drug Industry
Drug Resistance
Epilepsy
Epilepsy - diagnosis
Epilepsy - drug therapy
Epilepsy - etiology
Evidence
Evidence-Based Medicine
Freedom
Guidelines
Humans
Meta Analysis
Narcotics
Outcome Assessment (Health Care)
Patients
Practice Guidelines as Topic
Professional Competence
Quality Assurance, Health Care
Randomized Controlled Trials
Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic
Research Support as Topic
Seizures
State Medicine
Statistical Significance
United Kingdom
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Summary:In the UK, guidelines on the management of childhood epilepsy have just been published by the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE). These, it is claimed, are evidence based. One definition of evidence-based medicine (EBM) is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. Surely, no one could question that this is a good thing and that it should be the cornerstone of our clinical management of patients with epilepsy. The NICE guidelines contain almost 200 recommendations. In addition, NICE has previously published guidelines on the use of the newer antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in children and the Cochrane database of systematic reviews includes many on the topic of epilepsy. If there is so much evidence around on which to base our clinical practice, why does it seem that most practitioners involved in the clinical care of children with epilepsy base most of their practice on case reports, anecdotes, and personal experience?
ISSN:0012-1622
1469-8749
DOI:10.1017/S001216220500037X