title: Correlation of ictal EEG and SPECT studies in patients of intractable epilepsy with normal MRI.
abstract: Identification of the epileptic focus is the most important requirement for a successful surgical outcome in intractable epilepsy. Patients with normal MRI on high-resolution imaging pose a significant challenge in this regard. We tried to identify the epileptic focus using interictal / ictal SPECT and ictal EEG patterns in 14 patients with normal MRI. Rhythmic ictal onset activity helped to identify a single focus in 10 patients (71.43%). Inter ictal SPECT detected a focus corresponding to ictal EEG in 6 out of 10 patients (60%) in whom the test was performed. Ictal SPECT done in 5 patients correctly identified the focus in all patients (100%). Our data indicate that it is possible to obtain localization in patients with normal MRI using a combination of ictal EEG patterns and an ictal SPECT study.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi - 110 029, India.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Thomas
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Bhatia
authors.forename: C S
authors.initials: CS
authors.lastname: Bal
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gaikwad
authors.forename: V P
authors.initials: VP
authors.lastname: Singh
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Jain
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D004569:Electroencephalography; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D012016:Reference Values; D015899:Tomography, Emission-Computed, Single-Photon