Department of Radiology, College of Health Science, Addis Ababa University.
Ethiop J Health Sci. 2022 Oct;32(Spec Iss 1):3-10. doi: 10.4314/ejhs.v32i1.2S.
Headache is one of the most common complaints that lead the patient to seek medical advice however only a few patients with recurrent headaches have a secondary cause like intracranial mass. The appropriate utilization of neuroimaging is important to rule-out secondary cause of headache in resource-limited regions. The objective of this study is to describe the patterns of MRI findings in the evaluation of patients with chronic headache and to determine the clinical variables helpful in identifying patients with intracranial lesions.
This cross sectional study was conducted among 590 selected patients who underwent an MRI scan of the head from September 2016 to January 2018 at Wudassie Diagnostic center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Siemens Magnetom 0.35T MRI was used.
Out of 590 patients, 372 (63.1%) were females and 218 (36.9%) were males; 300 (50.8%) patients with the mean age of 38.6 ± 0.5 years and a median of 37 ± 16.7years have normal brain MRI and 290(49.2%) have abnormal brain MRI reports. The abnormal findings further divided into non-significant findings were 166(28%) that did not alter patient management and clinically significant findings were 124 (21%) which included by decreasing order of frequency tumors, infection, hydrocephalus, hemorrhage, and vascular abnormalities.
It was 1.3 times higher rate of positive brain MR findings in patients who had headaches plus abnormal neurologic findings as compared to patients without neurologic abnormality (P-value = 0.01). There is a high rate of significant abnormal MRI findings in this study as compared to studies from developed nations.
头痛是导致患者寻求医疗建议的最常见症状之一，但只有少数反复发作头痛的患者有颅内肿块等继发性病因。在资源有限的地区，适当利用神经影像学排除头痛的继发性病因非常重要。本研究的目的是描述慢性头痛患者 MRI 检查结果的模式，并确定有助于识别颅内病变患者的临床变量。
这是一项横断面研究，纳入了 2016 年 9 月至 2018 年 1 月期间在埃塞俄比亚亚的斯亚贝巴的 Wudassie 诊断中心接受头部 MRI 扫描的 590 名患者。使用西门子 Magnetom 0.35T MRI 进行检查。
在 590 名患者中，372 名（63.1%）为女性，218 名（36.9%）为男性；300 名（50.8%）患者的平均年龄为 38.6 ± 0.5 岁，中位数为 37 ± 16.7 岁，他们的脑部 MRI 正常，290 名（49.2%）患者的脑部 MRI 报告异常。异常发现进一步分为无意义的发现 166 例（28%），这些发现不会改变患者的治疗方案，而有临床意义的发现 124 例（21%），按频率降序排列，包括肿瘤、感染、脑积水、出血和血管异常。
与无神经系统异常的患者相比，有头痛和异常神经系统表现的患者的脑部 MRI 阳性发现率高 1.3 倍（P 值=0.01）。与发达国家的研究相比，本研究中显著异常的 MRI 发现率较高。
