Role of MRI in the evaluation of different ankle and foot pathologies

Abstract

Introduction: Ankle injuries have been reported to be the most common type of lesion in 24 of 70 sports, ankle sprain being the most frequent. Osteochondral lesions of the ankle are being recognized as an increasingly common injury and have been reported in as many as 50% of acute ankle injuries, particularly sports-related injuries.Objective: The purpose of this study is to provide musculoskeletal imaging techniques for ankle and foot evaluation, targeting clinical questions and diagnostic challenges.Materials and methods: This is a prospective, observational and descriptive study conducted in the Department of Radiodiagnosis, Subbaiah Institute of Medical Sciences and tertiary care hospitals, Shivamogga over a period of 9 months. This study includes 70 patients with different complaints in the ankle including, pain around the ankle, decreased movement of ankle joint, difficulty in walking, swelling around the ankle, tenderness in the ankle and trauma to the ankle. The patients underwent Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of the ankle joint.Results: In our study 70 patients with different ankle complaints were subjected to MRI of the affected ankle after initial examination and basic investigation including plain radiography. Patients were broadly grouped into different categories based on their etiology as traumatic, neoplastic, infective/inflammatory, degenerative and miscellaneous. We found that traumatic etiology was more common, seen in 24 patients (34.2%) followed by Infective/inflammatory etiology seen in 18 patients (25.7%) while least common was neoplastic seen in 6 patients (8.5%). Degenerative etiology was seen in 13 patients (18.5%) and other miscellaneous causes was seen in 9 patients (12.8%).Conclusion: MRI provides a means of depicting ligament injuries and can be used to differentiate ligament tears from other causes of ankle pain and injury.