SPHARM detects hippocampal subfield pathology in temporal lobe epilepsy

Abstract

Our purpose was to detect volume changes in the hippocampal subfields of patients with pharmacoresistant temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) using SPHARM, a surface-based shape analysis method. We studied 95 TLE patients with unilateral hippocampal atrophy on MR volumetry and 46 controls. SPHARM applied to manual hippocampal labels measured a distance at each vertex between groups. In more than 40% of patients, we found a bilateral CA1 inward deformation more marked ipsilateral to the focus. These changes were negatively correlated with disease duration. Predominant CA1 atrophy with relative sparing of other subfields is in agreement with histopathological hippocampal sclerosis.