2022 Volume 47 Issue 1 Pages 51-56
Purpose: Lumbar spondylolysis is prevalent in junior and high school students with low back pain who are involved in sports activities. It is characterized by worsening low back pain during lumbar extension. In this study, we investigated the incidence of lumbar spondylolysis among junior and high school students with low back pain who had visited our clinic.
Methods: In total, 129 junior and high school students complained of worsening low back pain during lumbar extension from August 2012 to August 2013. All students were recommended to undergo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but only 105 students (71 boys and 34 girls) underwent these examinations. Students with high signal changes in the adjacent pedicle on short TI inversion recovery (STIR) sequence of MRI were diagnosed with acute lumbar spondylolysis.
Results: Among the 105 students, 59 (56.1%) students (boys: 52/71 [73.2%]; girls: 7/34 [20.6%]) were diagnosed with acute lumbar spondylolysis based on MRI findings. The onset was located at many places in the following different lumbar levels: 1 place in L-2, 8 places in L-3, 20 places in L-4, and 33 places in L-5 (including multiple entries for the same student). In total, 28, 18, and 16 places were involved on the left, right, both sides, respectively.
Discussion: The reasons for the higher rate of diagnosis of lumbar spondylolysis in this study when compared with previous studies are that we focused on patients with low back pain during lumbar extension, and we conducted a cross-sectional study of basically all patients. Lumbar spondylolysis should be considered first in the diagnosis of low back pain during lumbar extension in junior and high school students.
Conclusions: We investigated the incidence of lumbar spondylolysis among junior and high school students who had visited our clinic. Approximately 60% of the junior and high school students who complained of worsening low back pain during lumbar extension were diagnosed with acute lumbar spondylolysis.
