Combining 7T and 3T MRI in Epilepsy Diagnosis: A Collaborative Approach to Enhance Surgical Decision-Making

Motivation: Epilepsy can be imaged at 3T utilizing typical imaging sequences, but improved quality and resolution can be achieved using 7T, enabling better detection of lesions and subsequently better chances of a successful treatment outcomes. Goal(s): Provide higher quality images for patients with epilepsy on 7T. Approach: 146 patients were evaluated for epilepsy using 7T MRI. Among these, 117 patients also had prior 3T MRI for comparison. Results: Combining 3T and 7T MRI has demonstrated promise in improving the diagnostic and surgical decision-making process for epilepsy patients for our neurologists and neurosurgeons. Impact: In conjunction with 3T imaging, our findings at 7T consistently detect a greater number of lesions in epilepsy patients, resulting in greater confidence in localizing and characterizing lesions that were questionable or not identified at 3T.