Author(s)

Mathurin Neossi Guena^1,2*, Florent Alapha Zilbinkai², Antonia Djougnye¹, Regine Gaelle Ngah Etoundi¹, Edwige Vekoun Ngadjere¹, Emmanuela Manka’a Wankie³, Narcisse Nwedjiwe Nana³, Celestine Nguemgne³, Wanko Woguep Laure Vanina³, Joseph Fotsin Gonsu^4,5

¹Department of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Sciences, University of Ngaoundéré, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon.
²Imaging service, Ngaoundéré Regional Hospital, Ngaoundéré, Cameroon.
³Imaging service, Douala General Hospital, Douala, Cameroon.
⁴Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaounde I, Yaounde, Cameroon.
⁵Yaounde Gynaecology Obstetrics and Pediatrics Hospital, Yaounde, Cameroon.

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.

Spine, MRI, Spinal Disorders, Douala General Hospital

Guena, M. , Zilbinkai, F. , Djougnye, A. , Etoundi, R. , Ngadjere, E. , Wankie, E. , Nana, N. , Nguemgne, C. , Vanina, W. and Gonsu, J. (2019) Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the Spine at the Douala General Hospital (Cameroon). Open Journal of Modern Neurosurgery, 9, 237-247. doi: 10.4236/ojmn.2019.93023.