Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe the pediatric population undergoing MRI for detection of musculoskeletal pathology in a dedicated university hospital. Furthermore,
we proceeded to evaluate MRI usage across age and gender,
the most commonly performedstudies and diagnoses.
Secondary purposes/objectives include:
creation of an atlas and database for normal pediatric MRIexaminations in different age groups,
as well asimaging findings regarding distinct musculoskeletal diseases/conditions
development of dedicated MRI protocols for different body segments and the most frequently encountered conditions
Methods and Materials
Selection of allpediatric (0-21 years old) MRI examinations performed between May 2016 and May 2018 for evaluation of musculoskeletal conditions
Data extraction– sex,
age at examination,
body segment studied,reason for examination request,
imaging findings,
final diagnosis on the written report,
MRI protocols
Statistical analysis with Microsoft Excel® and SPSS®
Results
This study includes everyMRI performed in the pediatric population (0-21 years old) between May 2016 and May 2018 at our institution,
for evaluation of musculoskeletal conditions.
In total,
1000 pediatric MRIs were performed for the purpose of evaluating musculoskeletal disease in 891 patients.
Circa 54% (N=540) of patients were female and 46% (N=460) male.
The most examined segments were knee (35,1%),
hip (17%),
ankle (8,8%),
toes and feet (5,3%),
hands and fingers (4,5%),
shoulder (4,3%) and whole-body/muscle (3,1%).
Average age was 11,62 years,
which was...
Conclusion
We performed an epidemiological survery of pediatric MRI utilization regarding musculoskeletal pathology investigation.To our knowledge,
this is the first study that depicts the most frequent anatomical regions studied regarding evaluation of the musculoskeletal system with MRI.
Our study shows that a significant proportion of musculoskeletal MRI examinations do not show significant findings,
and the most common changes found are of inflammatoryor infectious nature.
This study also provides a baseline for the use of MRI in pediatric patients regarding musculoskeletal evaluation in a University Hospital and...
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