Brain Diffusion Weighted Imaging Study of Mongolian Idiopathic Epilepsy

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of diffusion-weighted imaging in the assessment of idiopathic epilepsy in Mongolian. METHODS: One hundred Mongolian idiopathic epilepsy patients were enrolled as the observation group and 100 healthy Mongolian volunteers as the control group. All the subjects underwent routine MRI, diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI), and intra-voxel incoherent motion (IVIM) examination on a 3.0 T scanner. Mean kurtosis (MK), mean diffusivity (MD), fractional anisotropy (FA), true water molecular diffusion coefficient (D), mean diffusion coefficient (MD), pseudo-diffusion coefficient (D∗), and perfusion fraction (f) of each region of interest in the brain were measured. Count data were expressed as rates, and the chi-square test was performed for comparison between groups. Measurement data were first assessed by a normality test, and the t test for independent samples was performed for comparison between groups if they met the normal distribution; for non-normal distribution, the Mann-Whitney U test was performed for comparison between groups. A ROC curve analysis was performed to test the effectiveness of each parameter. RESULTS: MK values of the hippocampus, thalamus, and white matter of the temporal lobe in the observation group were significantly higher than those in the control group, while D and F values were significantly lower (all P < 0.05). ROC curve analysis showed that MK, D, and F values of the hippocampus, thalamus, and white matter of the temporal lobe had moderate to good diagnostic efficacy for idiopathic epilepsy (AUC = 0.617–0.749, all P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: DKI and IVIM can more accurately represent the abnormal changes of brain tissue in patients with epilepsy, and it may have important implications for the clinical diagnosis of Mongolian epileptic patients.