Characterization of Lumbar Degenerative Disc Disease in Patients with Lower Back Pain using Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to characterize the lumbar degenerative disc disease in patients with lower back pain by using MRI depending on pfirrmann’s grading system. The data collected from Antalya medical diagnostic centre in Khartoum state from march 2016 to august 2016. The MRI machine used in this study was general electric (GE) 1.5 tesla and the protocol used was sagittal T2. The number of patients in this study were 35 (22 females & 13 males) and the mean age was 46.2 After tabulating and analizing the collected data we found that the females are more affected with lumbar degenerative disc disease (62.9%) than males (37.1%), and the most affected ages were the persons at the ranges of (40 – 49) and (50 – 59) . The most affected persons were the housekeepers (37.1%), employees (11.4%) then teachers and farmers (8.6%) for both. The smoking percentage was 5.7%. According to analization of 175 lumbar discs for 35 patients depending on pfirrmann’s grading system the results were: grade I has 6 disc (3.4%), grade II has 85 discs (48.6%), grade III has 56 discs (32%), grade IV has 22 discs (12.6%), grade V has 6 discs (3.4%). The degeneration of disc being considered starting from the 3rd degree including the 4th, and 5th degrees; and accordingly the study prove that most discs (56 disc from 175) is affected by 3rd degree representing 32%. We prove that the most affected lumbar discs with degeneration disease were the fourth and fifth (68.6% and 74.3%) of patients respectively.