[Magnetic resonance tomography in epilepsy].

The most important causes of focal epilepsy are hippocampal sclerosis, circumscribed tumors, vascular malformations, trauma and perinatal damage. At the moment MRI is the best radiological imaging modality for localizing and characterizing a focus. In many cases, however, even MRI is negative. Especially in hippocampal sclerosis the diagnostic role of MRI is still not well established. Diagnostic criteria are side differences with hippocampal atrophy and circumscribed signal increase on T2-weighted images of the affected temporal lobe. Circumscribed lesions caused by tumors or vascular malformations are demonstrated very reliably by paracoronal T2-weighted sequences. Routine administration of the paramagnetic contrast material Gd-DTPA is not necessary.