Radiographic Findings in Chronic Low Back Pain Patients

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Radiographic Findings in Chronic Low Back Pain Patients

The Study: Prevalence of radiographic findings in individuals with chronic low back pain screened for a randomized controlled trial: secondary analysis and clinical implications.
The Facts:
a. The authors looked at the following: disc degeneration, spondylolisthesis, transitional segmentation, and sacral slope.

b. The subjects all had chronic low back pain and were aged from 21 to 65.

c. The study included 247 subjects and they used x-rays of those subjects to obtain the information.

d. The subjects had suffered from low back pain for 12 or more weeks.

e. Transitional segments were seen in 14% of the cases.

f. Disc degeneration was seen in 29% of the subjects at L1-2, 41% of the subjects at L2-3, 49% of the subjects at L3-4, 42% of the subjects at L4-5 and 37% of the subjects at L5-S1.

g. 18% of the subjects had degenerative spondylolisthesis while only 5% had isthmic spondylolisthesis.

h. The sacral slope was similar to the amounts reported in other populations.

i. Although the subjects had to have suffered from low back pain for at least 12 weeks to be included in the study, 91% of the subjects had suffered from the low back pain for over a year.


The conclusion is that Abnormal findings are quite common on radiographs in subjects having chronic low back pain.

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