Our medical director named as one top five influential authors in the world researching SUDEP 

SUDEP - Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy – is generally considered to be the leading cause of epilepsy deaths. Every year there are 1,200 epilepsy related deaths in the UK, with half of them thought to be caused by SUDEP.

It is certainly a key area of research for scientists at the Epilepsy Society as we try to understand through genomics and neuroimaging, any signals in a person’s make up which suggest they could be more vulnerable to the risk of SUDEP.

A new study has named our Medical Director, Professor Ley Sander, as one of the five most influential authors, worldwide, in the research literature on SUDEP. Out of a total of 6,502 authors from around the world, he is ranked as one of the five most productive and cited authors investigating SUDEP. This is alongside Orin Devinsky (USA), T Tomlin,(Sweden), Philippe Ryvlin (France) and Sam D Lhatoo (USA).

Prof Sander commented: “Too often I see young people on the cusp of adult life who die suddenly, leaving family and friends shocked and grieving. Every death is a tragedy.

“This is why SUDEP is such an important area of research for us at the Epilepsy Society and why I am personally determined to throw everything we have at understanding more about the cause, risk and how we can mitigate for it.

“Our research would not be possible without the amazing people who strive to make sense of their loved one’s death by fundraising for us. The accolade in this study – being named as one of the top five authors – is a testament to those people who make our research possible.”

The study also named the UK and USA as the most productive and cited countries in the field of SUDEP research, with common themes including cardiac arrhythmia, apnea, autonomic dysfunction, epilepsy characteristics and epidemiology such as age, sex and incidence. Emerging themes included sleep, genetics and refractory epilepsy.