Lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis epidemiology: a systemic review with a focus on gender-specific and age-specific prevalence

The epidemiology of lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) remains controversial. We performed a systemic review with the aim to have a better understanding of DS’s prevalence in general population. The results showed the prevalence of DS is very gender specific and age specific. Both women and men have few DS before 50 years old, after 50 years old both women and men start to develop DS, with women having a faster developing rate than men. For elderly Chinese (≥ 65 yrs, mean age: 72.5 yrs), large population based studies (MsOS(Hong Kong) and MrOS (Hong Kong), females n=2000 and males n=2000) showed DS prevalence was for 25.0% for women and 19.1% for men, and the prevalence F:M (women:men) ratio was 1.3:1. The published data (MsOS(USA) and MrOS(USA) studies) seem to show elderly Caucasian American has a higher DS prevalence, being approximately 60-70% higher than elderly Chinese; however the prevalence F:M ratio was similar to elderly Chinese population. Patient data showed female patients more often received treatment than men; and preliminary data show the ratio of numbers of female patients received treatment compared with men did not differ between Northeast Asians (Chinese, Japanese, and Korean) and European and American Caucasians, being around 2:1 in elderly population. The existing data also suggest that menopause may be a contributing factor for the accelerated DS development in post-menopausal women.