Voxel based morphometry of FLAIR MRI in children with intractable focal epilepsy: Implications for surgical intervention

Purpose: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), in particular fluid-attenuated inversion-recovery (FLAIR), has transformed the delineation of structural brain pathology associated with focal epilepsy. However, to date there is no literature on voxel based morphometry (VBM) of FLAIR in children with epilepsy. The aim of this study was to explore the role of visual and VBM assessment of FLAIR in pre-operative investigation of children with intractable focal epilepsy. Methods: Children with intractable epilepsy due to focal cortical dysplasia (FCD) and children with intractable cryptogenic focal epilepsy (CFE) were investigated. FLAIR and T1-weighted MRI were acquired on a 1.5T MRI scanner (Siemens, Erlangen, Germany). VBM was performed using SPM5 (Wellcome Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, London). Results: Eight children with FCD (M = 5, age 7.9-17.3 years) and 14 children with CFE (M = 8, 7.8-16.8 years) were enrolled. VBM of FLAIR detected 7/8 (88%) of FCD whilst VBM of T1-weighted MRI detected only 3/8 (38%) FCD. VBM of FLAIR detected abnormality in 4/14 children with CFE, in 2/14 (14%) the abnormality was concordant with other data on the epileptogenic zone and with visible abnormality on repeat visual inspection of MR data. VBM of T1-weighed MRI detected abnormality in 2/14 children with CFE, none of which correlated with visible abnormality. Discussion: This study highlights the important role that FLAIR imaging has in the pre-operative assessment of children with intractable epilepsy. VBM of FLAIR may provide important information allowing selection of children with intractable CFE who are likely to benefit from further neuroradiological or neurophysiological evaluation