Degeneration of the intervertebral disc is implicated as the main cause of low back pain. Current treatment strategies for degenerative disc disease, such as conservative treatments and surgeries, only relieve the symptoms of low back pain without treating the causes of underlying degeneration. Surgical treatments cannot reverse the degeneration of the intervertebral disc degeneration, and may ...

Most chronic low back pain is the result of degeneration of the lumbar intervertebral disc. Ligustrazine, an alkaloid from Chuanxiong, reportedly is able to relieve pain, suppress inflammation, and treat osteoarthritis and it has the protective effect on cartilage and chondrocytes. Therefore, we asked whether ligustrazine could reduce intervertebral disc degeneration. To determine the effect of...

Objective To evaluate the occurrence and frequency of abnormalities at the second and third cervical vertebral junction (C2/3) in dogs with and without atlantoaxial instability (AAI). Study Design Retrospective multi-institutional case-controlled case series. Animals One hundred and seventeen dogs with AAI and 117 dogs without AAI. Methods Radiographs, together with computer tomographic images ...

Study Design Retrospective radiological review. Purpose To quantify the effect of sitting vs supine lumbar spine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and change in anterior displacement of the psoas muscle from L1-L2 to L4-L5 discs. Overview of Literature Controversy exists in determining patient suitability for lateral lumbar interbody fusion (LLIF) based on psoas morphology. The effect of pos...

BACKGROUND A series of studies have been conducted to evaluate the associations between vitamin D receptor (VDR) and aggrecan variable numbers of tandem repeat (VNTR) polymorphisms and the risk of intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD), but produced conflicting results. OBJECTIVE we performed a meta-analysis to address a more accurate estimation of the associations between the above gene poly...

Many researches point out that intervertebral pressure and transformation are key parameters for evaluating intervertebral disc degeneration. Aiming at avoiding the damage caused by direct and indirect measuring methods, this research proposes a cylindroid hypothesis and measuring method, which can monitor the strain condition of the intervertebral disc in vivo and real-time without being damaged.

Calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate (CPPD) deposition disease, also known as pseudogout, is a disease that causes inflammatory arthropathy in peripheral joints, however, symptomatic involvement of the intervertebral disc is uncommon. Herein, we describe a 59-yr-old patient who presented with cauda equina syndrome. Magnetic resonance imaging of the patient showed an epidural mass-like lesion at the ...

Atsttrin, an engineered molecule composed of three fragments of progranulin(PGRN), exerts comparable anti-inflammation ability. Intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) is involved in inflammation in which TNF-α plays a key role. This study aims to examine the effect and the mechanism of Atsttrin in the pathogenesis of intervertebral disc degeneration. For this purpose, we took advantage of murin...

The mechanisms of immune privilege in human nucleus pulposus (NP) remain unclear. Accumulating evidence indicates that Fas ligand (FasL) might play an important role in the immune privilege of the disc. We aimed for addressing the role of FasL expression in human intervertebral disc degeneration (IDD) and immune privilege in terms of the interaction between NP cells and immunocytes via the FasL...

STUDY DESIGN Case series. OBJECTIVE Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is the cause of spondylosis. The pathogenesis is poorly understood, but disc dehydration often plays a role. In this study, we aim to identify and quantify aquaporin-1 (AQP1) in ex vivo human degenerated IVDs obtained intraoperatively and to investigate the relationship between AQP1 levels and magnetic resonance imagin...