ArticlePloS one2016
Degenerative Pathways of Lumbar Motion Segments--A Comparison in Two Samples of Patients with Persistent Low Back Pain.
Article in PloS one, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 0 citations in OpenAlex.
- Associations Between Sum Scores or Combinations of MRI Findings in the Lumbar Spine and Low Back Pain-Related Outcomes: A Systematic Review.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Associations between single and combined lumbar MRI findings and low back pain with and without leg pain: a cross-sectional study.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2026Article
- Surgery rates for lumbar spinal stenosis in Denmark between 2002 and 2018: a registry-based study of 43,454 patients.Acta orthopaedica · 2022Article
- The association between subgroups of MRI findings identified with latent class analysis and low back pain in 40-year-old Danes.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2018Observational
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundMagnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is used to identify spinal pathoanatomy in people with persistent low back pain. However, the clinical relevance of spinal degenerative MRI findings remains uncertain. Although multiple MRI findings are almost always present at the same time, research into the association with clinical outcomes (such as pain) has predominantly focused on individual MRI findings. This study aimed to: (i) investigate how multiple MRI lumbar spine findings cluster together within two different samples of patients with low back pain, (ii) classify these clusters into hypothetical pathways of degeneration based on scientific knowledge of disco-vertebral degeneration, and (iii) compare these clusters and degenerative pathways between samples.
methodsWe performed a secondary cross-sectional analysis on two dissimilar MRI samples collected in a hospital department: (1) data from the spinal MRI reports of 4,162 low back pain patients and (2) data from an MRI research protocol of 631 low back pain patients. Latent Class Analysis was used in both samples to cluster MRI findings from lumbar motion segments. Using content analysis, each cluster was then categorised into hypothetical pathways of degeneration.
resultsSix clusters of MRI findings were identified in each of the two samples. The content of the clusters in the two samples displayed some differences but had the same overall pattern of MRI findings. Although the hypothetical degenerative pathways identified in the two samples were not identical, the overall pattern of increasing degeneration within the pathways was the same.
conclusionsIt was expected that different clusters could emerge from different samples, however, when organised into hypothetical pathways of degeneration, the overall pattern of increasing degeneration was similar and biologically plausible. This evidence of reproducibility suggests that Latent Class Analysis may provide a new approach to investigating the relationship between MRI findings and clinically important characteristics such as pain and activity limitation.
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