SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA The association between the facet tropism and the development of lumbar disc herniation has been studied; however the results remain controversial. OBJECTIVE To determine the association between the facet tropism and the development of lumbar disc herniation. STUDY DESIGN A cross-sectional study. MATERIAL AND METHOD MRI of 34 patients with lumbar disc herniation...

BACKGROUND Spinal zygapophysial, or facet, joints are a source of axial spinal pain and referred pain in the extremities. Conventional clinical features and other noninvasive diagnostic modalities are unreliable in diagnosing zygapophysial joint pain. STUDY DESIGN A systematic review of the diagnostic accuracy of spinal facet joint nerve blocks. OBJECTIVE To determine the diagnostic accurac...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The prevalence of facet joint signal change in acute/subacute lumbar vertebral body compression fractures is unknown. We hypothesized that facet joint signal change on MR imaging is more common in facet joints associated with an acute/subacute lumbar compression fracture than those associated with normal vertebral bodies or ones that have a chronic compression fracture. ...

Percutaneous and open pedicle screw placements have been widely used in lumbar fusion surgery. However, there are conflicting reports of cranial facet joint violation rate for the 2 techniques. To better determine the rate of cranial facet joint violation, a systematic review and meta-analysis was performed in the present study. We searched the established electronic literature databases includ...

We aimed to study correlation between bone mineral density (BMD) and facet joint orientation in normal, osteopenic and osteoporotic patients. The correlation between more sagittally oriented facet joint and facet joint osteoarthritis and spondylolisthesis was described previously. However, the correlation between facet joint orientation and its possible correlation with BMD measurements has not...

BACKGROUND In the literature, 'below and lateral to the superior S1 facet' is defined as the basic technique for screw introduction. Until a recently published modification, no analysis for alternative starting point has been proposed nor evaluated, although some surgeons claim to use some modifications. In this study, we analyse the data from anatomical and radiological studies for optimal sta...