Authors: Aya Ahmed Ashour, Ayman Mohamed Ahmed Nassef, Eman Mahmoud Awad, Ahmed Mohamed Hazzou, Maha Ali Nada, Yosra Abdel-Zaher Abdullah.
Background: Epilepsy is a serious common neurological disorder that can affect any age. Cognitive dysfunctions are highly prevalent in patients with epilepsy and are more likely to occur in patients with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE). Associations were found between cognitive functions and brain volume loss in patients with epilepsy.
Objective: This work was carried out to assess the cognitive, volumetric changes in brain of epileptic patients in adult and adolescent patients with epilepsy.
Patients and Methods: A case control study was conducted to include 61 patients, 20 of them with idiopathic generalized epilepsy (IGE), 21 with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) and 20 with frontal lobe epilepsy (FLE). Patients were selected from the Epilepsy Outpatient Clinic in Ain Shams University Hospitals. Along with 23, age and sex matched healthy controls. Both cases and control groups were subjected to Magnetic resonance imaging MRI brain volumetry and detailed cognitive testing.
Ethical issues: An informed consent was taken from each adult patient, guardian of adolescent patient and healthy control.
Results: Statistically significant difference was found in comprehension subcategory of the Wechsler adult intelligence scale (WAIS) between patients with IGE and healthy controls, denoting poorer social judgment in the IGE group. The IGE group also showed poorer performance in digit symbol subcategory of the same test denoting worse psychomotor speed and sustained attention. Also, significant difference in similarities subcategory was found between TLE group and control group denoting poorer abstract thinking among the TLE group. The IGE and TLE groups also showed lower attention and concentration than control group in the mental control subcategory of the Wechsler memory scale (WMS) yet failed to show superiority over each other.
No statistically significant difference was found on comparing the whole brain volume between cases and control groups. A statistically significant direct relationship was found between the arithmetic subcategory of WAIS and the decrease in the whole brain volume of the patients with FLE.
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