ArticleSpine surgery and related research2022
Influence of Age and Gender on Intervertebral Disk Degeneration and Height in the Thoracolumbar Spine.
Article in Spine surgery and related research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physiological Ageing of the Lumbar Intervertebral Disc Based on Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a Systematic Literature Review.Medicina (Kaunas, Lithuania) · 2025Pooled it
- Coexistence of neck pain and low back pain, and their association with demographic, occupational, and spine MRI-based morphological factors in dentists.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 · 2026Article
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- Bioactive Therapies for Degenerative Disc Disease: Microenvironmental Foundations of Disease.World neurosurgery · 2025Review
- Presence of sacralized lumbar vertebra predisposes to adjacent level lumbar disc degeneration: A cross-sectional study.Acta orthopaedica et traumatologica turcica · 2025Article
- Magnetic resonance imaging findings in Ghanaian patients presenting with low back pain: a single centre study.BMC medical imaging · 2025Article
- Downregulation and Hypermethylation of Vitamin D Receptor in Lumbar Disc Degeneration.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Difference of Disk Degeneration and Segmental Range of Motion due to Lumbar Disk Level among Age and Gender: 639 Asymptomatic Volunteer Data.Spine surgery and related research · 2025Article
- [Interpretation of a concept for functional movement disorders from the perspective of older patients].Der Nervenarzt · 2024Review
- Comparison between minimally invasive and open transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion for the treatment of multi‑segmental lumbar degenerative disease: A systematic evaluation and meta‑analysis.Experimental and therapeutic medicine · 2024Article
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Intervertebral disk degeneration is a universal and natural process. However, no reports have summarized anatomical age-related intervertebral disk height and disk degenerative changes in the thoracolumbar spine or examined sex-specific differences. This study aimed to establish age-related changes and gender-specific differences of intervertebral disk height and disk degeneration of the thoracolumbar spine in a large cohort of relatively healthy subjects and also to evaluate the relationship between the degree of thoracolumbar disk height and disk degeneration. Methods: Six hundred and twenty-seven relatively healthy subjects (307 males and 320 females; average age, 49.6±16.5 years) were enrolled. We included at least 50 males and 50 females in each decade of life between the 20s and the 70s. We measured intervertebral disk height from T10/T11 to L5/S1, vertebral body height from T10 to S1 on lateral neutral radiographs. Lumbar disk degeneration was defined according to the Pfirrmann classification in sagittal plane magnetic resonance imaging. Results: Age-related decreases in intervertebral disk height were most prominent at L4/L5 in middle-aged and elderly individuals of both sexes. The grade of disk degeneration significantly increased with age in both genders at every level. Mild disk degeneration was observed even in the 20s. The disk degeneration occurred around the L4/L5 level. Although grade V disk degeneration was not identified for males in the 20s and the 30s, it appeared after the 40s and then increased further with age. The intervertebral disk height at the lower lumbar disks decreased with a progression in the disk degeneration grade in both genders. Conclusions: This large-scale cross-sectional analysis of the thoracolumbar spine in relatively healthy subjects demonstrated that lumbar disk height narrowing progresses with age and is correlated with the progression of disk degeneration.
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