Epilepsy AI tool detects brain lesions doctors miss

An artificial-intelligence (AI) tool can detect two-thirds of epilepsy brain lesions doctors often miss, say the UK researchers who have developed it, paving the way for more targeted surgery to stop seizures.

One out of every five people with epilepsy - a total of 30,000 in the UK - has uncontrolled seizures caused by brain abnormalities too subtle for the human eye to see on scans.

Child epilepsy experts say the AI tool has "huge potential" and opens up avenues for treatment.

For this study, published in JAMA Neurology, external, the researchers, from King's College London and University College London, fed their tool magnetic-resonance-imaging (MRI) scans from more than 1,185 adults and children at 23 hospitals around the world, 703 of whom had brain abnormalities.

The tool, MELD Graph, was able to process the images more quickly than a doctor could - and in more detail - which could mean more timely treatment and fewer costly tests and procedures, lead researcher Dr Konrad Wagstyl said.

The AI would require human oversight, however, and many of the abnormalities were still missed.

"AI can find about two-thirds that doctors miss - but a third are still really difficult to find."

At one hospital in Italy, the tool identified a subtle lesion missed by radiologists, in a 12-year-old boy who had tried nine different medications but still had seizures every day.

Study co-author and childhood epilepsy consultant Prof Helen Cross said it had the potential "to rapidly identify abnormalities that can be removed and potentially cure the epilepsy".

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Source: BBC News, 24 February 2025