Advanced MRI in epilepsy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Advanced MRI in newly diagnosed and intractable epilepsy
IRAS ID
140420
Contact name
Anthony Marson
Contact email
Research summary
Epilepsy is the most common serious neurological disorder. In order to develop a full understanding of the natural progression of epilepsy and it’s comorbidities it is crucial to know how the structure and functioning of the brain is altered at the onset of epilepsy; this will provide answers on the mechanisms that make some patients incurable, and contribute to our understanding of the natural history of the comorbidities associated with epilepsy.
The Walton Centre NHS Foundation Trust (WCFT) has a long-standing history of excellence in the treatment of and research in epilepsy. As part of standard care, patients with newly diagnosed epilepsy (NDE) whose seizures arise from a particular part of the brain have an MRI scan. This scan is visually evaluated by experienced neuroradiologists to determine whether there is any structural brain abnormality that may be causing the epileptic seizures. Approximately 70% of patients with NDE and 40% of patients with medically intractable focal epilepsy will not have a structural abnormality on MRI. This may be because that increasingly sophisticated imaging techniques are required to determine brain alterations that escape detection using standard clinical MRI protocols.
We will perform quantitative MRI studies on (i) patients with NDE, (ii) patients with intractable epilepsy and (iii) healthy controls, who will be scanned at WCFT and at the Magnetic Resonance and Image Analysis Research Centre (MARIARC), University of Liverpool. We anticipate that prospectively acquired advanced MRI approaches, and quantitative analysis of MRIs acquired as part of standard care, will provide increased sensitivity in the detection of focal abnormalities in patients with NDE and intractable epilepsy.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
14/NW/0332
Date of REC Opinion
11 Jun 2014
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion