Journal ArticleDOI
Abnormal magnetic-resonance scans of the lumbar spine in asymptomatic subjects. A prospective investigation
TLDR
In this paper, the authors performed magnetic resonance imaging on sixty-seven individuals who had never had low-back pain, sciatica, or neurogenic claudication, and found that about one-third of the subjects were found to have a substantial abnormality.Abstract:
We performed magnetic resonance imaging on sixty-seven individuals who had never had low-back pain, sciatica, or neurogenic claudication. The scans were interpreted independently by three neuro-radiologists who had no knowledge about the presence or absence of clinical symptoms in the subjects. About one-third of the subjects were found to have a substantial abnormality. Of those who were less than sixty years old, 20 per cent had a herniated nucleus pulposus and one had spinal stenosis. In the group that was sixty years old or older, the findings were abnormal on about 57 per cent of the scans: 36 per cent of the subjects had a herniated nucleus pulposus and 21 per cent had spinal stenosis. There was degeneration or bulging of a disc at at least one lumbar level in 35 per cent of the subjects between twenty and thirty-nine years old and in all but one of the sixty to eighty-year-old subjects. In view of these findings in asymptomatic subjects, we concluded that abnormalities on magnetic resonance images must be strictly correlated with age and any clinical signs and symptoms before operative treatment is contemplated.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
A diagnostic support tool for lumbar spinal stenosis: a self-administered, self-reported history questionnaire
Shinichi Konno,Shinichi Kikuchi,Yasuhisa Tanaka,Ken Yamazaki,Youichi Shimada,Hiroshi Takei,Toru Yokoyama,Masahiro Okada,Shou-ichi Kokubun +8 more
TL;DR: A new self-administered, self-reported history questionnaire was developed successfully as a diagnostic support tool for LSS to assess the diagnostic value of the history of the patient for categorization of LSS.
Journal ArticleDOI
Lumbar lordosis: study of patients with and without low back pain.
TL;DR: Although the results confirm known observations that lumbar lordosis is more prominent in women and those with a higher body mass index, it is unable to demonstrate any significant variation in lordosis with age, nor could it demonstrate any difference in the degree of lordosis among women with or without back pain.
Journal ArticleDOI
Magnetic resonance imaging findings in asymptomatic volunteers and symptomatic patients with temporomandibular disorders
TL;DR: It is suggested that disk displacement is more common in symptomatic subjects than in asymptomatic subjects and a history of general anesthesia and orthodontic treatment was not increased.
Journal ArticleDOI
Using health-related quality-of-life information: clinical encounters, clinical trials, and health policy
Joel Tsevat,Jane C. Weeks,Jane C. Weeks,Edward Guadagnoli,Anna N. A. Tosteson,Carol M. Mangione,Joseph S. Pliskin,Joseph S. Pliskin,Milton C. Weinstein,Milton C. Weinstein,Paul D. Cleary +10 more
Journal ArticleDOI
Age-related changes of thoracic and cervical intervertebral discs in asymptomatic subjects.
Morio Matsumoto,Eijiro Okada,Daisuke Ichihara,Kota Watanabe,Kazuhiro Chiba,Yoshiaki Toyama,Hirokazu Fujiwara,Suketaka Momoshima,Yuji Nishiwaki,Takeshi Hashimoto,Takeshi Takahata +10 more
TL;DR: Degenerative changes in the thoracic spine on MRI was observed in approximately half of the asymptomatic subjects, whereas their incidences were less frequent than those in the cervical spine.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Back pain and sciatica.
TL;DR: Low back pain is usually a self-limiting symptom, but it costs at least $16 billion each year and disables 5.4 million Americans, and the fact that a benign physical condition has such an importa...
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A study of computer-assisted tomography. I. The incidence of positive CAT scans in an asymptomatic group of patients.
TL;DR: To study the type and number of CAT scan abnormalities of the lumbar spine that occur in asymptomatic people, 52 studies from a control population with no history of back trouble were mixed randomly with six scans from patients with surgically proven spinal disease, and all were interpreted by three neuroradiologists in a blinded fashion.
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Abnormal myelograms in asymptomatic patients.
TL;DR: The incidence of myelographic abnormalities in 300 patients who were studied by posterior fossa myelography to establish a diagnosis of acoustic tumor is reported, even though patients had no symptoms of cervical or lumbar nerve root compression at the time of the examination.
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The question of lumbar discography.
TL;DR: It has not been established whether internal derangement of the lumbar disc is sufficiently symptom-producing to be a therapeutic objective, especially a surgical one, or whether it represetits anything more than an aging process, and the patterns of degeneration seen in 628 of 2,187 discs injected by the Cleveland group and 773 of 6,784 discs injections by Feinberg or 322 of 870 disc injected by Massie and Stevens may represent nothing more than normal patterns for the age
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Lumbar herniated disk disease and canal stenosis: prospective evaluation by surface coil MR, CT, and myelography
TL;DR: The results of this study indicate that a technically adequate MR examination was equivalent to CT and myelography in the diagnosis of lumbar canal stenosis and herniated disk disease.