Objective: The purpose of the study was to determine the characteristics of diffusion weighted Magnetic Resonance imaging indicators in children with symptomatic epilepsy with cerebral palsy.

Background: Cerebral palsy of children is one of the most common adverse perinatal outcomes of the nervous system disease. Cerebral Palsy is a disease which describes a group of non-progressive brain disorders that result from damage or nondevelopment of the brain structures in the antenatal, intranatal or early postnatal periods, characterized by movement disorders, impaired posture, speech and cognitive functions.

Methods: The study was based on the results of the study 54 children with symptomatic epilepsy with cerebral palsy aged 1 – 11 years. All patients underwent standard clinical and neurological examination, with the inclusion of routine MRI. All of 54 studied children underwent routine Magnetic Resonance imaging with diffusion weighted sequence. Main group consisted of 26 epilepsy patients with cerebral palsy. The control group consisted of 20 children without clinical manifestations of epilepsy and no signs of seizure activity on EEG. FA (fractional anisotropy), values and MD (mean diffusion) were calculated on the same sections for all the resulting images.

Results: In the study these children with symptomatic epilepsy on the background of cerebral palsy we found a significant decrease in the FA values in fronto-temporal areas (P <0.01). In other areas studied FA values were within the normative range. To evaluate the results of MRI diffusion is used as indicator of the mean diffusion (MD), an increase of values is associated with a defect in neurogenesis or loss of cells, followed by an increase in the extracellular space. In children with symptomatic epilepsy cerebral palsy was observed the significant increase the MD values in all studied areas (P <0.01).

Conclusions: The obtained results prove that diffusion weighted MRI in children with symptomatic epilepsy and cerebral palsy reveals the structural changes of white matter of brain. A significant increase of diffusion capacity of the brain due to lower fractional anisotropy in the fronto-temporal lobe indicates the permeability and damage of the myelin sheath in white matter.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/diffusion-weighted-magnetic-resonance-imaging-in-child-cerebral-palsy-with-symptomatic-epilepsy/