PURPOSE To document the pattern of enhancement and morphologic changes on MR images that occur in the intervertebral disk and adjacent vertebral bodies after diskectomy and to correlate the presence of intervertebral disk enhancement with the preoperative and postoperative clinical findings. METHODS Preoperatively, and at 3 months and 6 months after surgery, 94 adults who had first-time surge...

Cervical radiculopathy presents as pain in a dermatomal distribution. This frequently represents compression of an exiting cervical nerve root by either a herniated disk or a degenerative cervical spondylotic change. Most patients will improve with nonoperative treatment, and a small percentage will require further diagnostic evaluation and ultimately surgical intervention. An understanding of ...

Ten lumbar disk levels in nine patients were examined by computed tomography (CT) before and 6 weeks after chymopapain chemonucleolysis of herniated nucleus pulposus (HNP). Patient selection for chemonucleolysis was partly based on CT scans demonstrating morphologic HNP criteria favoring a successful treatment outcome. Posttreatment CT scans disclosed a measurable HNP size decrease of 1-3 mm at...

Described are patients initially diagnosed with progressive spinal muscular atrophy (PSMA), in whom further evaluation established another diagnosis. The authors prospectively investigated incident and prevalent cases of PSMA. Seventeen of 89 patients, after initial registration, were later excluded because reassessment revealed a diagnosis other than PSMA. In 11 of the 17 patients with a revis...

Dear Editor I read with great interest the case report titled “Periumbilical pain with radiation to both legs following tarantula bite; a case report” published in Emergency journal (1). The authors introduce a male patient presenting with periumbilical pain radiating to both legs. They performed paraclinical evaluations to rule out large vessel insult and herniated disk; however, he discharged...

Study Design Single-center, retrospective study. Objective Suboptimal concentrations of vitamin D have been linked to hip and knee osteoarthritis in large, population-based cohort studies. We sought to examine the association of vitamin D levels with intervertebral disk disease. Methods From January 2010 through May 2011, 91 consecutive, eligible adult spine surgery patients who had undergone c...

[Purpose] This study was conducted to clarify the difference in therapeutic effects between traction and decompression therapies, and their clinical therapeutic significance. [Subjects and Methods] The subjects were 31 patients aged 35 to 50 years who had unilateral or bilateral lumbar and radicular leg pain. An intervention program was implemented in 31 patients with lumbar herniated intervert...

Forty-eight patients had 50 extraforaminal disk herniations (EFDHs) demonstrated on CT and/or MR by (1) presence of disk density or disk signal material lateral to the neural foramen, (2) displacement or obliteration of paravertebral fat, and (3) nerve root or ganglion compression or displacement. Forty-one of 50 EFDHs had a coexisting intraforaminal component; nine of 50 had an isolated far la...

OBJECTIVES A prospective study to determine if low-level laser therapy and surgery for intervertebral disk herniation encourage ambulation faster than surgery alone. METHODS Thirty-six dogs with acute paraparesis/paraplegia due to acute intervertebral disk herniation were evaluated and given a modified Frankel score. Dogs with scores 0 to 3 were included in the study. Dogs were assigned to th...