Spinal Cord (2016) 54, 604–608 & 2016 International Spinal Cord Society All rights reserved 1362-4393/16 www.nature.com/sc ORIGINAL ARTICLE Spectrum of nontraumatic myelopathies in Ethiopian patients: hospital-based retrospective study NJ Fidèle1 and A Amanuel2 Study design: This is a retrospective hospital-based study. Objectives: The study aimed at a better understanding of the etiology, clinical presentation and treatment outcome of nontraumatic myelopathies in Ethiopian patients. Setting: Etiologies of nontraumatic myelopathies have not been evaluated extensively in most sub-Saharan African countries. The available studies in this region were conducted before the widespread clinical use of modern neuroimaging modalities. This study was conducted in Addis Abba, Ethiopia. Methods: We retrospectively analyzed medical files of patients with a diagnosis of myelopathy (age ⩾ 13 years) admitted or followed up at Tikur Anbesa Hospital between 1 January 2010 and 30 June 2013. Results: Records of 105 patients were analyzed. The male to female ratio was 1.7. The mean age was 38.5 years. Weakness, sensory symptoms (including sensory level), back pain and sphincter dysfunction were the dominant features. Etiologies were dominated by spinal tuberculosis (23.8%) followed by spinal cord neoplastic lesions (primary (10.5%) and secondary neoplasms 8.6%). Other important etiological causes were transverse myelitis (16.2%), degenerative cervical spondylotic myelopathy (15.2%), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (4.8%) and neuromyelitis optica/multiple sclerosis (3.8%). The mortality rate was 9.5%. Among the patients who died, 40% had chest infection as a complication and 70% presented with complete weakness. Conclusion: Infections remain a major cause of spinal cord disease, and tuberculosis constitutes public health target for reducing the incidence of myelopathies. Early detection and treatment of complications may reduce the high rate of mortality and morbidity observed. Spinal Cord (2016) 54, 604–608; doi:10.1038/sc.2015.226; published online 29 December 2015 INTRODUCTION Confidentiality was assured by giving each patient a unique number. The Myelopathies are common neurological diseases. Worldwide, the study was started after getting ethical approval from the appropriate body of the epidemiological data of nontraumatic spinal cord diseases are scarce. Addis Ababa University. Patients excluded from the study were patients aged o fi Some of the available studies in Sub-Saharan Africa1–7 are very old and 13 years, patients who had wrong diagnosis, patients with insuf cient data were conducted on the basis of clinical diagnosis and spinal X-ray for diagnosis or patients with traumatic myelopathies. The data were analyzed using SPSS 16.0 for windows (SPSS, Chicago, IL, USA). because of unavailability of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic Presumed etiologies of myelopathies were diagnosed based on collating resonance imaging (MRI). Spinal tuberculosis (TB) was apparently the clinical examination findings with information obtained from the neuro- primary cause of nontraumatic spinal cord lesions in sub-Saharan imaging studies, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood studies, chest X-ray Africa and, together with neoplasms, account for almost half of the findings, associated neurological and non-neurological illness/es, histology reported cases.1,2 However, with the advent of CT and MRI, the yield (where available) and response to treatment (for example, tuberculosis). for positive diagnosis has greatly increased. We aimed at determining The diagnosis of nontraumatic myelopathy was considered in the following the causes of myelopathy at the Tikur Anbessa Hospital, the main scenarios, used also in a similar study conducted in Yaoundé (Cameroun):1 teaching Hospital of Addis Ababa University, in order to improve early diagnosis and treatment strategies. nontraumatic paraplegia (or paraparesis) and tetraplegia (or tetraparesis) with sensory level; nontraumatic paraplegia (or paraparesis) and tetraplegia (or tetraparesis) PATIENTS AND METHODS without sensory level but with spastic limbs and without cerebral functions In this retrospective study, patients with myelopathies aged ⩾ 13 years who and/or controlateral cranial nerve abnormalities; presented to Tikur Anbessa Hospital from January 2010 to June 2013 were nontraumatic paraplegia (or paraparesis) and tetraplegia (or tetraparesis) included. Medical records of patients were retrieved and a datasheet was used to without sensory level or spastic limbs but also without sign of peripheral collect the following data: age, sex, address, occupation, presenting symptoms nerve disease, neuromuscular junction disease and muscular disease; and signs, investigations, treatment, duration of hospital stay and treatment nontraumatic hemiparesis, triparesis and monoparesis with other more outcome at hospital discharge. specific signs of myelopathy (such as up-going plantar response, bilateral 1Internal Medicine Department, Neurology unity, Butare University Teaching Hospital, Rwanda and 2Department of Neurology, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia Correspondence: Dr NJ Fidèle, Internal Medicine Department, Neurology unity, Butare University Teaching Hospital, HUYE, Po Box 254 Butare, Rwanda. E-mail: [email protected] Received 6 June 2015; revised 15 November 2015; accepted 23 November 2015; published online 29 December 2015 Nontraumatic myelopathies in Ethiopian patients NJ Fidèle and A Amanuel 605 hyper reflexia) were considered as myelopathy if the brain imaging (CT or laborers. Sixty- five percent of our patients were coming from out of MRI) was normal with a spinal cord lesion explaining the clinical findings. Addis Ababa, the capital city. The first noticed symptoms were extremity weakness in 45 (46%), The clinical context in which we considered our presumptive diagnosis was back or neck pain in 31 (32%), numbness or paresthesia in 12 (12.4%) as follows: and pain and weakness at the same time in 9 (9.3%). The mean fi et al.8 Transverse myelitis modi ed from Berman duration before consultation was 19 months, s.d. (3), whereas the median was 5 months. The mean hospital stay was 25.7 days s.d. 1. acutely or subacutely developing motor, sensory and sphincter disturbance; (18.7), the range being 2–76 days and the median being 21.5 days. The 2. sensory level; comorbidities identified with the diagnosis of myelopathy were mainly 3. no clinical or laboratory evidence of spinal cord compression; fi fi 4. absence of other known neurological illness; and human immunode ciency virus (HIV)/acquired immunode ciency 5. lack of progression over 4 weeks. syndrome (nine cases) and TB (nine pulmonary and six extra- pulmonary TB cases). Other recorded comorbidities included diabetes, The above-mentioned criteria were used to diagnose any inflammatory acute asthma (two cases each) and tertiary syphilis, non-Hodgkin transverse myelitis, as it was difficult in our set-up to exclude some of the lymphoma, multinodular goiter and stage IV prostate cancer etiologies such as viral and bacterial myelitis. The infectious etiology was (one case each). specified where applicable. The clinical features are shown in Table 2. The pattern of weakness Neuromyelitis optica was as follows: paraplegia/paraparesis in 78 (74.3%), quadriplegia/ quadriparesis in 17 (16.2%), triplegia/triparesis in 5 (4.8%), presence of myelitis and optic neuritis; hemiparesis/hemiplegia in 3 (2.9%) and monoplegia/monoparesis in a contiguous spinal cord lesion on MRI extending three or more segments. 2 (1.9%). Spinal MRI was performed in 78 (74.3%). Spinal CT scan and spinal X-ray were performed in 4 and 23 patients, respectively. Multiple sclerosis: HIV test was performed for 44 patients, and 9 (20%) among them were positive. CD4 count was done for 8 patients (median = 210, dissemination in space demonstrated on MRI by one or more T2 lesions in at least two of four multiple sclerosis-typical regions of the ranged from 90 to 1444). Among HIV-positive patients, 6 (66.7%) had central nervous system (periventricular, juxtacortical, infratentorial or spinal TB as a cause of myelopathy. Others were having Burkitt spinal cord); lymphoma, multiple myeloma and undiagnosed myelopathy one case dissemination in time demonstrated by two clinical attacks at each. Complete cell blood count was performed for 87 patients. – different times. The hemoglobin level was o12 g dl 1 for 13 (15%). Erythrocyte sedimentation rate was determined in 43 (41%) patients, and it was We considered spinal tuberculosis in the following scenarios: above 20 mm hr–1 in 30 (69.8%). Among patients with inflammatory and neoplastic causes, erythrocyte sedimentation rate was abnormal Pott’s disease: if chronic myelopathy with imaging (X-ray, CT scan or for 90% and 85.7%, respectively. The etiologies of myelopathy are MRI) suggesting Pott’s disease together with or without clinical response depicted in Table 3. The causes were infectious in 28 (26.7%), to anti-tuberculous medication. degenerative in 24 (22.9%), malignancy in 20 (19%), inflammatory fl intramedullar tuberculosis: intramedullar in ammatory lesion by MRI in 19 (18%), toxic metabolic in 1 (0.9%) and for 13 (12.4%) patients responding to anti-tuberculous medications. the cause was not known. tuberculosis myeloradiculatis: subacute or chronic onset of radiculomye- litis with response to anti-tuberculous treatment. The infectious causes included spinal TB in 25 patients (23.8% of all causes of myelopathy; Figure 1). The degenerative causes of myelopathy