Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2005, 205(3)

Case Report

A Hippocampal Lesion Detected by High-Field 3 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging in a Patient with Temporal Lobe Epilepsy

YUKIO SAWAISHI, MAKOTO SASAKI,¹ TAMAMI YANO, AYA HIRAYAMA, JINZO AKABANE² and GORO TAKADA

Department of Pediatrics, Akita University School of Medicine, Akita, ¹Department of Radiology, Iwate University School of Medicine, Morioka, and ²Department of Pediatrics, Nakadori General Hospital, Akita, Japan

Nearly 80% of patients with temporal lobe epilepsy have some types of lesion identified by conventional 1.5 tesla (T) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We performed high-field 3 T MRI in a 5-year-old patient with recurrent complex partial seizures who was diagnosed as having right temporal lobe epilepsy based on the results of single photon emission computed tomography and ictal video-electroencephalogram monitoring, because 1.5 T MRI failed to detect any abnormalities in the suspected region. High-field 3 T MRI revealed a small high-intensity lesion on fast spin-echo short inversion time inversion-recovery images of the hippocampus, possibly responsible for the seizures. This is the first report detecting a hippocampal lesion by 3 T MRI, which could not be found by conventional 1.5 T MRI.

keywords —— high-field MRI; 3 T MRI; hippocampus; mesial temporal sclerosis; temporal lobe epilepsy

© 2005 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Address for reprints: Dr. Yukio Sawaishi, Department of Pediatrics, Akita University School of Medicine, 1-1-1 Hondo, Akita 010-8543, Japan.

e-mail: sawaishi@med.akita-u.ac.jp