OBJECTIVE We wanted to investigate the relationship between the magnetic resonance (MR) findings and the clinical outcome after treatment with non-surgical transforaminal epidural steroid injections (ESI) for lumbar herniated intervertebral disc (HIVD) patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS Transforaminal ESI were performed in 91 patients (50 males and 41 females, age range: 13-78 yrs) because of lu...

OBJECTIVE Lumbar foraminal or extraforaminal disc herniations (FEFDH) have unusual clinical features and higher incidence in elderly patients compared to usual intraspinal canal disc herniations. We evaluated the efficacy of microdiscectomy via paramedian approach for lumbar FEFDH in elderly patients over the age of 65. METHODS Retrospective study was performed in 68 patients over the age of ...

BACKGROUND Anterior interbody fusion has previously been demonstrated to increase neuroforaminal height in a cadaveric model using cages. No prior study has prospectively assessed the relative change in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) demonstrated neuroforaminal dimensions at the index and supradjacent levels, after anterior interbody fusion with a corticocancellous allograft in a series of pa...

OBJECTIVE Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) grading systems using sagittal images are useful for evaluation of lumbar foraminal stenosis. We evaluated whether such a grading system is useful as a diagnostic tool for surgery. METHODS Between July 2014 and June 2015, 99 consecutive patients underwent unilateral lumbar foraminotomy for lumbar foraminal stenosis. Surgically confirmed foraminal ste...

MR imaging with surface coils is currently the preferred method for the evaluation of cervical soft disc herniation. However, the differentiation between soft disc herniation and osteophytic spurs in the neural foraminal canal is not always obvious on a 0.5 Tesla unit. Therefore the specificity for neural foraminal canal pathology has been reported not to be very high. We evaluated MRI in selec...

INTRODUCTION Castellvi Type III lumbosacral transitional vertebrae (LSTV) is an unusual case of Bertolotti's syndrome (BS) due to extraforaminal stenosis, especially manifesting in elderly patients. CASE REPORT We report a case of BS in a 62 years old Greek female. The signs of the clinical examination are low back pain, sciatica, hypoesthesia, and pain to the contribution of L5 nerve. Imagin...