Dedicated Magnetic Resonance Imaging Sequences: Contribution in the Diagnosis of Focal Epilepsy in the Lebanese Population

There have been many advances in the diagnosis and management of focal epilepsies particularly with neuroimaging techniques and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Special MRI sequences can be employed to localize and resect the epileptogenic lesions responsible for focal epilepsy. This study aims to show the benefit of dedicated epilepsy MRI sequences in the diagnosis of focal epilepsies. A general electric 1.5 Tesla MRI machine was used with standard and special sequences. Also, a Nihon Kohden electroencephalography (EEG) machine was used. This is a prospective observational study that included 51 patients with focal epilepsies who had an initial negative brain imaging. They underwent epilepsy MRI sequences along with a prolonged video EEG monitoring to localize the lesion, and then results were analyzed statistically using SPSS 22 program. The majority of patients were males (62.75%) with a mean age of 30 years. The grand majority of patients (74.5%, p value of 0.001) had their lesion localized by the epilepsy MRI. The most commonly found pathology was mesial temporal sclerosis. A significant number of patients (23.5%) were sent for an epilepsy surgery (p value 0.002). This study shows the significant impact of dedicated epilepsy MRI sequences on the diagnosis and management of focal epilepsy in the Lebanese population.