Diagnostic and prognostic role of proton single-voxel spectroscopy (SVS) in non-lesional epilepsy pediatric patients: prospective controlled study

Abstract

Background: We aimed to verify the diagnostic and prognostic role of proton single-voxel spectroscopy (SVS) in children with non-lesional epilepsy and its add-on value to conventional MR. The prospective controlled study carried out on the epileptic patients who were regularly following in the pediatric neurology clinic in our university hospital, over the period from July 2017 to July 2018. It compared SVS findings (NAA/Cr, NAA/Cho, and NAA/Cho+Cr ratios) between the case (50 patients) and control group (20 children), between the cases with different seizures semiology and between the patients with intractable and non-intractable epilepsy. Results: NAA/Cr ratio showed a significant difference between the patients with intractable and non-intractable epilepsy in the basal ganglia (P value 0.005) and white matter (P value 0.043) with cutoff values of 1.5 and 1.9 respectively. A significant difference of NAA/Cho ratio was found between generalized seizures cases and other seizures semiology in basal ganglia (P value 0.012) and cortex (P value