Magnetic resonance imaging utility in cephalalgia study

Introduction: Headache is a frequent cause of medical consultation representing the most common neurological symptom on human being, whose acute, subacute or chronic evolution on economically active population may become a cause of laboral inability. Objectives: Present paper pretends to show Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) as a relevant non invasive paraclinical method in the detection of morphological and tisular intensity signal changes in order to know the etiology and detectable intra and extra cranial consequences accompanying headache to improve treatment selection. Material and methods: 202 patients with different kinds of headache as single or accompanying symptom of other clinical manifestations with different etiology had MRI examination of the head on a 0.5T GE Magnetic Resonance equipment with T1 and T2 sequences on axial, sagital and coronal planes. Our casuistic was integrated with 140 male patients (69.30%) and 62 female patients (30.30%) and no one was examined before with other imaging method. Age varied between 20 and 69 years old (average of 42 years). Results: In 132 (65.34%) cases MRI showed pathological findings justifying the clinical manifestation of headache. 70 (34.66%) cases showed no abnormality and MRI was considered effective due to its ability to eliminate other clinical suspected diagnostics. MRI pathology detected in 132 cases showed demielinating processes due to microangiopathy and leucoaraiosis associated with systemic arterial hypertension and chronic headache changes in 34 cases. Neoplasic etiology was detectable in 12 cases and non-ruptured vascular malformations in 20. Congenital cystic lesions in 15. Different kinds of stroke in 10. Inflammatory pathology affecting paranasal sinuses mucose in 12. Neurocysticercosis in nine and finally 10 cases with less frequent pathologic lesions of different kinds. Conclusion: Almost two thirds of cases with headache showed in MRI some kind of lesion. Most of these lesions represented pathology susceptible to react adequately with precise therapeutic measures. MRI is an imaging method with high sensitivity and diagnostic specificity in patients with headache.