Prevalence of vertebral hemangioma and associated factors among patients’ seen through spine MRI at Saint Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical Collage, ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA.

Abstract

Abstract Background: - Vertebral hemangiomas are the most common benign spinal neoplasm often located in the thoracic and lumbar spine with a peak incidence of occurrence in the fourth to six decades. Vertebral hemangiomas (VHs) are the most common form of benign tumor in the vertebral column, constituting 2 % of skeletal benign tumors, and 0.8 % of all skeletal tumors. 98–99 % of VHs are asymptomatic. Objective: - To assess the prevalence of Vertebral Hemangiomas at SPHMMC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from September 2018 to February 2019. Method: - Facility based cross sectional study was conducted on patients’ data that had lower back pain and seen through magnetic resonance imaging in Saint Paul Hospital Millennium Medical College (SPHMMC) from September to February 2019. Data was collected using data extraction format. Data’s of 293 participants were reviewed in this study and descriptive statistics was applied to describe data using frequency tables and charts and also analytical study was used to relate the Vertebral Hemangiomas with independent variables which have P-value less than 0.2 in descriptive analysis will be added to final analysis. Result: - VHs were present in 46 (15.7%) out of 293 individuals in this study. Multiple VHs are seen in 19.6% of all; VHs of the 46 individuals showing VHs, 37 (80.4 %) had only one vertebra affected; 9 (19.6 %) had two and more vertebrae affected in which a rate is slightly higher (v2=43.338, p\0.001) than the prevalence reported in the literature (10.7 %). Multiple VHs appeared in 3.02 % of the population studied. 30 VHs (65.2 %) were found in females and 16(34.8%) in males. No significant association between sex and VH was found (OR=1.457, p=0.261 VHs appear in females early in adulthood (18–39 years), whereas no VH was found prior to middle age (40–59 years) in males. Among males, the age cohort with the highest prevalence of VH (40 % affected) is the 40–59 years; whereas in females, (43.6 % affected), it is the over 60 years. The difference in VHs prevalence in consequent age cohorts was statistically significant in males and females (v2 =10.666, p=0.005 and v2 =13.965, p=0.001, respectively). However, ‘‘older’’ age (over 50 years old) was not significantly correlated with the appearance of VHs in males (v2 =3.183, p=0.074) or females (v2 =3.456, p=0.063). No significant interaction between sex, age and VHs was found (p=0.656). Conclusions: - The reported prevalence of VHs is dependent on the demographic structure of the population studied. Overall, the phenomenon is more frequent than usually reported. VHs may appear at all vertebral levels and in all areas of the vertebral body.