The purpose of this editorial is to advocate further experimental work such as that which Muhle et al describe in this issue of the American Journal of Neuroradiology (page 1763). For spine imaging, patients are placed in a supine position, often with supports or cushions to enhance their comfort. This position, which minimizes the patient’s discomfort, may diminish any visible effect of spinal...

Study Design Pilot study using the rabbit model. Objective Low back pain is often associated with disk degeneration. Cell therapy for degenerating disks may promote tissue regeneration and repair. Human dermal fibroblasts, obtained from the patient's skin tissue or donated tissue, may be a promising cell therapy option for degenerating disks. The objective of these studies is to determine the e...

Intervertebral disk degeneration has been considered an irreversible process characterized by a decrease in cell viability, attenuation of proteoglycan and type II collagen synthesis, and dehydration of nucleus pulposus. Stem cell therapy specifically addresses the degenerative process and offers a potentially effective treatment modality. Current preclinical studies show that mesenchymal stem ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE By calculating T2 relaxation times for intervertebral disks, we tested the hypothesis that disk water concentration increases between the first and second decades of life. MATERIALS AND METHODS In subjects younger than 10 years old (group 1) and subjects between 19 and 20 years old (group 2), a sagittal MR image of the lumbar spine was obtained with a modified 3D fast s...

The intervertebral disk has an excellent swelling capacity to absorb water, which is thought to be largely due to the high proteoglycan composition. Injury, aging, degeneration, and diurnal loading are all noted by a significant decrease in water content and tissue hydration. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of hydration, through osmotic loading, on tissue swelling and com...

The present study proposes a semiautomatic software approach to reconstruct 3D subject-specific musculoskeletal model of thoracolumbar spine from radiographic digitized images acquired with EOS system. The approach is applied to evaluate the intervertebral loads in 38 standing adolescents with mild idiopathic scoliosis. For each vertebra, a set of landmarks was manually identified on radiograph...

background: a large proportion of patients presenting with lumbar disc disease are opium addicts in our region. it was, therefore, hypothesized that morphine might affect the intervertebral disc. we investigated the histological findings of morphine dependency on intervertebral discs in rat.   methods: forty nmri adult male rats (230-250 g) placed on ordinary diet and received aqueous solution ...