[Vertebral schisis in enuretic children: preliminary results of a statistical analysis]

It is well known that vertebral schisis is frequent in enuretic children but the true incidence in the normal population is not clear, because all series published are referred to children with associated urinary anomalies, who were submitted to voiding cystography and or intravenous pyelography. This determine a statistical bias. The aim of our study was to compare the prevalence of vertebral schisis in enuretic children and in the general pediatric population. Therefore, we chose 142 enuretic children without associated urological or neurological anomalies and a control group of 152 children, assumed as general population, who were submitted to spinal X-rays during screening for scoliosis or congenital dysplasia of the hip. Vertebral schisis was found in 65% (93/142) of enuretics and in 18% (28/152) of control group children. Maximum association between enuresis and vertebral schisis was found in primary monosymptomatic nocturnal enuresis (82%), while minimum association was found in children with secondary enuresis (57%). The difference in percentage of association enuresis-schisis was statistically significant between enuretics and control group and between primary monosymptomatic and secondary enuresis (p < 0.001). The results of this paper are simply add knowledges on the prevalence of the sacral schisis in enuretic children. But, to speculate the different prevalence in different types of enuresis, the results should confirm that the phenomenon of enuresis is multifactorial and the primary monosymptomatic and secondary enuresis have different etiological factor.