©2005 British Editorial Society of Bone and Joint Surgery doi:10.1302/0301-620X.87B8. 16151 $2.00 J Bone Joint Surg [Br] 2005;87-B:1029-37. Rationale for total lumbar disc replacement In the early 20th century, surgical fusion of one or more ‘functional spinal units’ (FSU) was developed and primarily performed for the treatment of spinal infection. 1-4 In the second half of the century, the ind...

T HIS iS .A very interesting book. It is divided into two main sections one on the tubercle bacillus and one on laborator-y methods. The section on the tubercle bacillus gives a most interesting and comprehensive survey of the great amount of wvork that has been done on the characteristics of the organism-its mo)rphology, the cultural characteristics of its various types, its pathogenicity for ...

experience which nmust include a comparison of past with present. F. A. Gibbs discussed abnormal electrical activity in the temporal regions and its relationship to abnormalities of behaviour. Hc deals mainly with spike discharges and points out that focal or generalised abnormalities are largely age determined, and that foci tend to shift with increasing age. He deals with the clinical differe...

BACKGROUND Lumbar disc prolapse, protrusion, and extrusion are the most common causes of nerve root pain and surgical interventions, and yet they account for less than 5% of all low back problems. The typical rationale for traditional surgery is that it is an effort to provide more rapid relief of pain and disability. It should be noted that the majority of patients do recover with conservative...

PURPOSE To our knowledge, there is no published information on the efficacy of epidural steroid injections for the treatment of lumbar disc herniation in an athletic population. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of epidural corticosteroid injection for treatment of lumbar disc herniation in a group of National Football League (NFL) players. METHODS We retrospectively revi...

OBJECTIVE Degenerative intervertebral disc disease is common; however, the importance of genetic factors is unknown. This study sought to determine the extent of genetic influences on disc degeneration by classic twin study methods using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). METHODS We compared MRI features of degenerative disc disease in the cervical and lumbar spine of 172 monozygotic and 154 d...

Objective: The herniated lumbar disc (HLD) in young patients is increasing. The endoscopic discectomy has been used as a treatment option, but it is limited in the management of large extruded or migrated disc herniations. Recently, with an application of extreme lateral endoscopic lumbar discectomy (ELELD), it is possible to obtain access to epidural space directly and to remove herniated disc...