Abstract: Background Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is a noninvasive imaging technique for the assessment of theintegrity of cerebral tissues. This study was undertaken to assess the changes of diffusion indices of hippocampalformation (HF) in patients with medial temporal lobe epilepsy (MTLE).Methods Fourteen patients with MTLE and 14 healthy subjects were evaluated. Mean diffusivity (MD) andfractional anisotropy (FA) from the symmetrical-voxel sampling regions of the anterior HF were calculated in allsubjects. The MD and FA values were compared across the groups.Results No significant differences of MD and FA values were noted between right and left HF in the controls.In the patient group, MD significantly increased in the HF ipsilateral to the lesioned side [(9.27±1.09)×10-4mm2/s], compared with the values in the contralateral HF [(8.20±0.59)×10-4 mm2/s] (t = 4.479, P = 0.001) andhealthy subjects [(7.58±0.51)×10-4 mm2/s] (P<0.001), but no significant differences were found in FA. Whencompared with the controls, patients had a significantly higher MD inthe contralateral HF (P<0.05), but thedifference in FA was not statistically significant.Conclusions DTI could detect hippocampal abnormality in patients with MTLE. This technique may be helpfulfor preoperative evaluation of such patients.