MRI Findings in Iraqi Patients with Epilepsy: A Cross Sectional Study

Aim of the study: is to evaluate role of MRI in epileptic patients. The study was a cross sectional one that included 51 epileptic patients, 29 children (under 15 years) and 22 adult. Those patients were referred by the neurology unit at Al-Hilla Teaching hospital to the MRI unit in the same hospital, Babylon province, Al-Hilla City, Iraq, during the period from 1^st of January 2017 to 4^th of June 2018. The MRI procedure was conducted on a 1.5 Tesla magnet (Siemens, Germany). The procedure involved imaging the routine epilepsy protocol of MRI examination relying on 5 mm thickness slices and 2.0 mm interslice gaps in the coronal, sagittal and axial planes with T1and T2 weighting. Abnormal MRI fndings were identifed in 21 out of 51 patients (41.2%). In epileptic adults there were 5 (22.7%), 3 (13.6%), and 1 (4.5%) patients with space occupying lesions (mostly brain tumors), medial temporal sclerosis and other organic lesions (brain atrophy) respectively, whereas 1 (3.4%), 8 (27.6%), and 3 (10.3%) epileptic children showed the following lesions: with space occupying lesions (mostly brain tumors), medial temporal sclerosis and other organic lesions (brain atrophy and vascular abnormalities) respectively. The rate of abnormal MRI fndings was 41.4% and 40.9% in children and adults respectively. Signifcant correlation was seen between focality of signs (in neurologic and EEG examinations) and rate of abnormal MRI fndings (P <0.05), table 4