Computed Tomography Imaging Features of Chronic Headaches in Abuja, Nigeria

Headache is one of the commonest presenting complaints among patients in the emergency room and in general outpatient clinics. Computed Tomography, CT is a veritable diagnosing tool in the evaluation of both intracranial and extracranial causes of headache.

Aim: To document the features of cranial CT in patients with chronic headache and determine the frequency of significant intracranial lesions.

Methodology: This is a retrospective study of the reports of cranial CT of 126 patients referred to the Radiology department of University of Abuja teaching hospital from January 2014 to February 2017with complaint of chronic headache. Data was statistically analyzed using SAS software version 9.3 and statistical level of significance set at 0.05.

Results: Age range of the studied patients was 5-75 years with a mean of 37.3±15.3 years and slight female preponderance (64% vs 54%) with majority of patients in the 45-55 age range. The CT findings show a near equal number of abnormal (n=62, 49.2%) and normal (n=64, 50.8%) findings with higher incidence of intracranial lesions (n=36, 58.1%).Intracranial tumors were seen in 11(17.7%) all occurring in patients <50 years. Sinusitis involving the maxillary and sphenoid sinuses were the commonest extracranial lesions.

Conclusion: There is a significant yield of remediable positive findings in Computed tomography scan of patients with chronic headaches in Abuja, Nigeria.