Hippocampal sclerosis (HS) is a relatively common finding in patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE), but the frequency with which similar tissue changes are found on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the healthy population has not been determined. To address this problem, researchers performed MRI (using their usual protocol for patients with TLE) on 99 patients with epilepsy and 51 matched control volunteers with no history of seizures or epilepsy.
The investigators found MRI signal abnormalities (T2 and fluid-attenuated inversion-recovery hyperintensities) suggestive of mesial temporal sclerosis (MTS) in one third of volunteers and half of patients, a nonsignificant difference. In contrast, they found hippocampal atrophy in 19% of pa…