Randomized trial shows significant associations between disease duration and hippocampal abnormalities in epilepsy, suggesting implications for clinical monitoring.
Key Points
The study aims to investigate the relationship between disease duration and hippocampal structural changes in patients with focal epilepsy.
Included 705 patients with unilateral focal epilepsy and 424 healthy controls from three centers in China.
Extracted global hippocampal features using advanced neuroimaging techniques and assessed associations using Spearman correlations.
Longitudinal changes evaluated in 80 patients with serial MRI scans using linear mixed-effects models.
Patients with epilepsy exhibited significant bilateral hippocampal abnormalities compared to controls, especially on the ipsilateral side.
Disease duration negatively correlated with hippocampal volume, thickness, and gyrification, while positively correlating with mean and intrinsic curvature (all p < 0.05).
Longitudinal analysis revealed a significant annual decline in ipsilateral hippocampal volume (β = -0.21 Z-score units/year, p = 0.042).