Ultra High Field MRI of Focal Pediatric Epilepsy
Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03318237. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.
Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.
Brief summary
Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.
Epilepsy affects a significant number of children in the United States. The majority of patients achieve control of their seizures by conventional treatment strategies including medications. However, one third of patients do not achieve satisfactory seizure control with medications alone. Ketogenic diet and lifestyle modifications may also be tried. In some of these children, the seizure focus can be localized to one area of the brain and the seizures are resistant to conservative treatment strategies. These children may have subtle structural/developmental abnormalities in their brain, the most frequent of which is focal cortical dysplasia. These are localized areas of abnormal lamination of the cerebral cortex that can be extremely subtle and difficult to detect, even with state of the art magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). More importantly, these lesions may be amenable to surgical resection resulting in marked decrease in frequency or even resolution of seizures. MRI is a noninvasive imaging modality without ionizing radiation that has played a central role in the assessment of anatomy, physiology/pathophysiology of children with epilepsy. It is particularly useful in children with refractory focal epilepsy. Prior studies have shown that high resolution, high-field (3T) MR imaging of the brain helps to identify subtle focal epileptogenic abnormalities, including focal cortical dysplasia, in some patients. However, there is scarce data directly comparing the performance of ultra high-field (7T) MRI, currently an investigative technique offering optimized contrast and signal-to-noise rations and superior spatial resolution, with clinically available 3T MR imaging. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether ultra high-field (7T) MR imaging improves detection and characterization of subtle structural epileptogenic abnormalities in children with focal epilepsy. The importance of this research is that identification of a focal epileptogenic lesion in children with refractory epilepsy has fundamental management implications, as surgical removal of such lesion may dramatically improve outcomes and the chance of seizure freedom.
Study identification
- NCT ID
- NCT03318237
- Recruitment status
- Terminated
- Study type
- Observational
- Phase
- Not listed
- Enrollment
- 2 participants
Conditions and interventions
Conditions
Interventions
Not listed
Eligibility (public fields only)
- Age range
- 6 Years to 21 Years
- Sex
- All
- Healthy volunteers
- Not listed
This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.
Study timeline
- Start date
- May 1, 2018 (Actual)
- Primary completion
- Nov 30, 2018 (Actual)
- Completion
- Nov 30, 2018 (Actual)
- Last update posted
- Sep 16, 2019
2018
United States locations
- U.S. sites
- 1
- U.S. states
- 1
- U.S. cities
- 1
| Facility | City | State | ZIP | Site status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johns Hopkins University | Baltimore | Maryland | 21287 | — |
Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.
About this trial record page
- What this page shows
- Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03318237, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
- What this page does not do
- No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
- Where the data comes from
- Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
- Last refresh
- Last update posted Sep 16, 2019 · Synced Oct 19, 2026
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Open the official record
The complete public registry record, listed eligibility criteria, and available contact information for NCT03318237 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.