Epilepsy

Abstract

Positron emission tomography (PET) has a key role in the management of patients with focal epilepsy as a well-established, functional imaging modality. Especially among various PET agents to evaluate brain function, 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) has been widely used because it reflects neuronal activity and allows quantification of cerebral glucose metabolism using tracer kinetic modeling. In the management of patients with medically intractable epilepsy, FDG PET became a routine process to localize epileptogenic foci, particularly in cases of patients presenting with normal anatomic structures on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Recently, this pivotal role of FDG PET in presurgical evaluation had been challenged by high-quality MRI (Duncan Curr Opin Neurol 22(2):179-84, 2009). © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York. All rights are reserved.