The prevalence of cervical ribs in Enugu, Nigeria

Background: Cervical rib is an important cause of nontraumatic thoracic outlet neurovascular compression. This study was undertaken as there is no known documented report on its prevalence in the study environment.Aims: To evaluate the prevalence of cervical ribs and its variation with sex and age among patients presenting at radiological facilities for a chest radiograph.Settings and Design: Retrospective evaluation of plain posterior‑anterior view chest radiographs done in radiological facilities in Enugu, Southeast, Nigeria.Subjects and Methods: Evaluated in this study were all 6571 chest radiographs consecutively obtained between 2009 and 2012 in three randomly selected radiological facilities in Enugu. Statistical Analysis Used: SPSS version 17 software was used in data analysis. Chi‑square and student t‑tests were used to test for the significance of findings at 95% confidence level.Results: This study reports the overall prevalence of cervical ribs as 48 (0.7%) with a significantly higher rate in females 43 (1.1%) when compared to males 5 (0.2%) (P = 0.000). In 27 (0.4%) cases, the cervical ribs were bilateral; whereas in 21 (0.3%) cases, they were unilateral with 8 (0.1%) on the left and 13 (0.2%) on the right. There was no age‑related variability with prevalence (P = −0.813).Conclusions: The prevalence of cervical rib in the study population is low and within the known range as seen in other geographical regions of Nigeria.Keywords: Cervical ribs, chest radiographs, Nigeri