TITLE:
Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Spine at the Douala General Hospital (Cameroon)
AUTHORS:
Mathurin Neossi Guena, Florent Alapha Zilbinkai, Antonia Djougnye, Regine Gaelle Ngah Etoundi, Edwige Vekoun Ngadjere, Emmanuela Manka’a Wankie, Narcisse Nwedjiwe Nana, Celestine Nguemgne, Wanko Woguep Laure Vanina, Joseph Fotsin Gonsu
KEYWORDS:
Spine, MRI, Spinal Disorders, Douala General Hospital
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Modern Neurosurgery,
Vol.9 No.3,
May
29,
2019
ABSTRACT: Objectives: The objective of this study was to evaluate the interest of MRI in the diagnosis of spinal disorders in our area. Method: It was a cross-sectional, descriptive and retrospective study during a nine-month period from January to September 2015 involving all patients who performed a spine MRI in the Imaging Department of Douala General Hospital. All the patients were scanned using an open-sided mid-field MRI APERTO LUCENT (0.4 T) using sagittal and axial slices in T1-weighted and T2-weighted FSE spin echo and STIR sagittal slices and T1 gado. Water-fat saturation (WFS) slices were obtained after injection of a contrast agent. All the data collected were analyzed using Microsoft Excel 2010 and Sphinx version 4.0. Results: 220 patients were recruited. The mean age was 46.34. There was male predominance with a sex ratio of 1.5. The main indication was lumbar spine pain (36.8%), followed by cervical spine pain, sensory and motor disorder. Neurosurgeon (33.6%), neurologist (23.1%) and rheumatologist (13.6%) were the main referring physicians. The lumbar spine was the most explored (53.2%). Discal hernia (46.6%), arthrosis (31.3%) and degenerative disc disease (25.5%) were the main observed lesion. Infectious disorders were mainly represented by spondylitis (5%); Traumatic disorders by spondylolisthesis (8.6%). Tumors were mainly metastasis (4%). 21.3% of MRI were normal. MRI-clinical concordance was 78.63%. Conclusion: MRI allows an accurate assessment of spinal and spinal cord pathologies without exposing patients to radiation. It helped to confirm or refute the diagnosis suspected by clinics. However, its availability is limited in our country.