Research in Medicine

Background: Electrodiagnostic studies give valuable diagnostic and follow up information about neuromuscular diseases to physician with various fields. The goals of this study were to evaluate demographic description of patients referred to EDX services and referring patients to determinate the tendency between the patient’s types of payment and referring necessity. Materials and methods: All EDX data were done in 3 separate centers in Tehran, which consist of a private center, a non-academic governmental clinic (Milad hospital) and an academic governmental clinic (Shohadaye Tajrish hospital) in 2012. Data of demographic characteristics, etiology and origin of referral, and final diagnose and payment methods were gathered. Results: During 1 year period, 9567 patients were evaluated by EDX tests. The most common diagnosis was CTS, lumbosacral radiculopathy and cervical radiculopathy, respectively 28%, 24% and 12%. The EDX result, in about one third (31%) of cases was normal. The most common roots involved in lumbosacral and cervical radiculopathies were L5 (49.5%) and C6 (42%), respectively. Interestingly, the percent of normal reports among group of patients paid fewer or no charge (third party payment) were less than groups of patients paid more charge. Conclusion: Despite the extensive application of imaging studies, such as MRI, there is increasing tendency to electrodiagnostic studies referrals from neuromuskuloskeletal physicians. This could be attributed to complementary role of electrodiagnostic studies to imaging studies, where electrodiagnosis as a physiologic evaluation completed imaging studies as structural evaluation. Also, this study shows the most prevalent diagnoses were spinal roots lesion and peripheral nerves entrapment syndromes.