ArticleEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2017
Change in fatty infiltration of lumbar multifidus, erector spinae, and psoas muscles in asymptomatic adults of Asian or Caucasian ethnicities.
Article in European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fatty infiltration and cross-sectional area as indicators of muscle mass in osteoporosis: a meta-regression study.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2025Pooled it
- Is fatty infiltration in paraspinal muscles reversible with exercise in people with low back pain? A systematic review.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2023Pooled it
- Imaging Evaluation of Fat Infiltration in Paraspinal Muscles on MRI: A Systematic Review with a Focus on Methodology.Orthopaedic surgery · 2021Pooled it
- Lumbar Muscle Fatty Infiltration and Atrophy in Patients with Low Back Pain and Degenerative Spinal Pathologies: A CT Imaging Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Associations of Changes in Skeletal Muscle Mass on Computed Tomography with Improvements of Muscle Strength and Physical Activity after Sleeve Gastrectomy: A Pilot Study.Physical therapy research · 2025Article
- A Primer on Anatomy, Biophysics, Pathology, Imaging and Treatment of the Intervertebral Disc and the Anterior Spinal Column: The Discogenic, Intervertebral, Spinal Column (DISC) ASPN Workgroup.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- MuscleMap: An Open-Source, Community-Supported Consortium for Whole-Body Quantitative MRI of Muscle.Journal of imaging · 2024Review
- Deep learning-based structure segmentation and intramuscular fat annotation on lumbar magnetic resonance imaging.JOR spine · 2024Article
- Reduced Cervical Muscle Fat Infiltrate Is Associated with Self-Reported Recovery from Chronic Idiopathic Neck Pain Over Six Months: A Magnetic Resonance Imaging Longitudinal Cohort Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Article
- Investigating the associations between lumbar paraspinal muscle health and age, BMI, sex, physical activity, and back pain using an automated computer-vision model: a UK Biobank study.The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society · 2024Article
- Prediction of Subsequent Vertebral Fracture After Acute Osteoporotic Fractures from Clinical and Paraspinal Muscle Features.Calcified tissue international · 2024Article
- What are the differences in paraspinal muscle morphometry among degenerative spondylolisthesis patients, isthmic spondylolisthesis patients, and healthy individuals? A propensity score matching analysis.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2024Article
- The Relationship Between Low Back Pain and Sagittal Spinal Alignment and Back Muscle Mass in Korean Fishery Workers.Annals of rehabilitation medicine · 2023Article
- Characteristics of paraspinal muscle fat infiltration in asymptomatic Chinese adults: a cross-sectional study.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2023Article
- Evaluation of Paraspinal Muscle Degeneration on Pain Relief after Percutaneous Epidural Adhesiolysis in Patients with Degenerative Lumbar Spinal Disease.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2023Article
- The role of paraspinal muscle degeneration in coronal imbalance in patients with degenerative scoliosis.Quantitative imaging in medicine and surgery · 2022Article
- Multi-muscle deep learning segmentation to automate the quantification of muscle fat infiltration in cervical spine conditions.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Paediatric reference values for total psoas muscle area.Journal of cachexia, sarcopenia and muscle · 2020Article
- Muscle fat infiltration following whiplash: A computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging comparison.PloS one · 2020Article
- Are Magnetic Resonance Imaging Technologies Crucial to Our Understanding of Spinal Conditions?The Journal of orthopaedic and sports physical therapy · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeFatty infiltration (FI) is a feature of degenerating muscle that predominates in the low lumbar spine, associates with pain, and is confounded by age, spinal degeneration, and curvature. We determined rates for decline of lumbar muscle quality according to ethnicity, muscle, and spinal level in asymptomatic subjects.
methodsCross-sectional simulation study assessing aggregated data; 650 Asians aged 20-89 years versus 80 Caucasians aged 20-62 years. Change in lumbar multifidus, erector spinae (ES), and psoas fat content were computed using synthetic data and Monte Carlo simulations. General linear regression models and multivariate adaptive regression splines enabled estimation of yearly decline rates [with 95% confidence intervals (CI)].
resultsES at L1-5 (total) shows steeply reduced density (rate; CI) for Asians in older (>53.3 years) adulthood (-0.32; -0.27 to -0.36/year). For Asians, multifidus (-0.18; -0.15 to -0.20/year) and psoas (-0.04; -0.03 to -0.06/year) also decline, while ES in younger ≤53.3 years) adults does not (0.06; 0.01-0.12/year). Caucasian multifidus declines (increasing FI % rate; CI) insignificantly faster (L1-5; 0.23; 0.10-0.36%/year) than ES (0.13; 0.04-0.22%/year). Multifidus decline does not differ between ethnicities. ES in older Asians generally declines fastest across ethnicities and muscles, and particularly in the low lumbar levels. Low lumbar levels show higher rates of decline in Asians, with mixed level-dependencies apparent in Caucasians.
conclusionsDecline in lumbar muscle composition may differ between ethnicities and muscles. ES and low lumbar levels appear increasingly susceptible in Asians. Longitudinal studies examining rate of change to muscle composition may provide distinction between spinal conditions.
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