Structural diagnosis of low back pain, lumbosciatica, and sciatica in patients treated at the Spine Rehabilitation Service of the National Rehabilitation Institute (INR)
Keywords:
Low back pain, lumbosciatica, sciatica, structural diagnosisAbstract
Introduction: Low back pain is a major public health problem worldwide. Most of the avail-
able international literature describes lumbar pain as idiopathic, regardless of the presence
of radicular pain or its absence. An accurate diagnosis is not always performed and lack of
specificity is the rule, since natural history of pain has a natural tendency to relief. Objective:
To make a precision diagnosis on the anatomical and structural cause of lumbar pain, either
with or without sciatic concomitant pain in patients of a Spine Rehabilitation Service from
National Institute of Rehabilitation. Methods: Observational, longitudinal and descriptive study
was made by consulting records of patients who were admitted at our spine rehabilitation
department, because of having low back pain, sciatica or lumbosciatica in 2010, who were
followed until 2012. χ2
, Student-t and multivariate logistic regression were used. Results: A
whole 973 patients were included as follows: 641 low back pain, 290 lumbosciatica, and
42 sciatica. Structural diagnosis was achieved in 87 % of cases. Main diagnosis were: lumbar
disc disease, spondylolistesis and herniated disc. OR was 40.66 (95% confidence intervals;
21.16-78.1) with plane x-rays. Conclusion: It is concluded that a major rate of patients who
were formerly classified as bearing idiopathic chronic low back pain, clinical picture could be
related to a spinal structural alteration, explaining at least in part the cause of pain.
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