Presurgical temporal lobe epilepsy connectome fingerprint for seizure outcome prediction

Temporal lobe epilepsy presents a unique situation where confident clinical localization of the seizure focus does not always result in a seizure-free or favourable outcome after mesial temporal surgery. In this work, magnetic resonance imaging derived functional and structural whole-brain connectivity was used to compute a network fingerprint that captures the connectivity profile characteristics that are common across a group of nine of these patients with seizure-free outcome. The connectivity profile was then computed for 38 left-out patients with the hypothesis that similarity to the fingerprint indicates seizure-free surgical outcome. Patient profile distance to the fingerprint was compared with 1-year seizure outcome and standard clinical parameters. Distance to the fingerprint was higher for patients with Engel III–IV 1-year outcome compared with those with Engel Ia, Ib-d, and II outcome (Kruskal–Wallis, P < 0.01; Wilcoxon rank-sum p(corr) <0.05 Bonferroni-corrected). Receiver operator characteristic analysis revealed 100% sensitivity and 90% specificity in identifying patients with Engel III–IV outcome based on distance to the fingerprint in the left-out patients. Furthermore, distance to the fingerprint was not related to any individual clinical parameter including age at scan, duration of disease, total seizure frequency, presence of mesial temporal sclerosis, lateralizing ictal, interictal scalp electroencephalography, invasive stereo-encephalography, or positron emission tomography. And two published algorithms utilizing multiple clinical measures for predicting seizure outcome were not related to distance to the fingerprint, nor predictive of seizure outcome in this cohort. The functional and structural connectome fingerprint provides quantitative, clinically interpretable and significant information not captured by standard clinical assessments alone or in combinations. This automated and simple method may improve patient-specific prediction of seizure outcome in patients with a clinically identified focus in the mesial temporal lobe.