EQuAL (Extent-specified Quantified Asymmetry of Lobe) is a unique epilepsy clinical analysis tool for Brain PET imaging of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). For the first time, physicians have a non-invasive way to more accurately determine in advance of TLE surgery, the likelihood that a patient would be seizure-free after surgery. EQuAL is integrated into the NeuroQ™ 3.0 platform.

EQuAL™ makes a difference.

How it works. EQuAL™ is an automated quantifying measure of metabolic activity in regions of interest in the brain that provides a comparison of the right and left temporal lobe, displaying any asymmetry. Daniel Silverman, M.D., Ph.D., the head of nuclear imaging at the UCLA Medical Center, and Syntermed developed this maximal temporal metabolic asymmetry tool. The software is integrated into the NeuroQ™ 3.0 platform, is readily usable in clinical settings and can display PET data not only conventionally, but also parameterized according to statistical and asymmetry-based representations.   Why is Brain PET important for epilepsy? Accurate localization of the focus of the seizure activity is critically important for surgical treatment. PET-FDG imaging, especially when performed concurrently with surface EEG measurements, may be useful for localizing all of the seizure foci for surgical resection. Without PET, patients would be forced to have an invasive procedure that requires depth electrodes being placed directly on the surface of the brain so that the electrical activity can be measured over a period of time. For the many patients that can be controlled by modern medications, surgery would not be considered. However, for those that cannot be controlled, PET provides an alternative test to help plan the surgery.