The Prevalence of Adenoid Hypertrophy in Brain MRI Examination in Children with Headache in the Pediatric Neurology Outpatient Clinic

Objectives: This study aims to evaluate the frequency of adenoid hypertrophy with magnetic resonance imaging in children and adolescents admitted to the pediatric neurology outpatient clinic with headaches. Materials and Methods Medical files of 772 children and adolescents aged 3-18 years who were admitted to Başkent University Pediatric Neurology Outpatient Clinic between 2012-2020 with headaches were retrospectively analyzed. Patients' age at presentation, age of onset of headache, duration, frequency, severity, localization-character of pain, nasal congestion, mouth breathing, snoring, cough, rhinorrhea, nasal discharge, presence of an allergy, and initial brain MRI reports were recorded, brain MRI examination was re-examined by a single radiologist to evaluate radiologically the presence of adenoid hypertrophy. Results A total of 761 (414 F) children and adolescents who were undergoing brain magnetic resonance imaging in the Radiology Department of Başkent University Faculty of Medicine were included in the study. No note of sleep disturbance or adenoid hypertrophy clinical signs and symptoms were found in patient files. Further, interestingly, there was no note on incidentally detected adenoids in the initial brain magnetic resonance (MR) imaging reports. When the imaging of the patients was re-evaluated for adenoid hypertrophy, grade 3 adenoid hypertrophy was detected in 228 patients. The mean age of those with grade 3 adenoid hypertrophy was 9±2.9 Conclusion: Clinical findings of adenoid hypertrophy should be questioned in children with headaches, and the radiology specialist should be warned to include the presence of adenoid hypertrophy in the report, with or without clinical history.
Keywords: Adenoid Hypertrophy, Brain MRI ,Headache, chidren