Potential prevention: orally administered statins may retard the pathologic process of disc degeneration

Intervertebral disc (IVD) is the largest avascular tissue in the human, and disc degeneration is generally considered to result from chronic disc cell nutrition insufficiency. Responsible for making and maintaining the extracellular matrix, the cells of IVDs are supplied with essential nutrients by diffusion from the blood supply through mainly the cartilaginous endplates and the periphery of the annulus. Many researches have demonstrated a strong association between atherosclerosis and IVD degeneration. The plaques in the artery can disturb the blood supply to IVDs. In addition, local injection of simvastatin was preliminarily found to promote autogenous chondrogenic disc repair and retard disc degeneration. Herein we postulate that orally administered statins may not only improve nutrition supply of IVDs through decreasing the influence of plaques on disturbance of blood supply, but also may promote disc repair, which may provide an alternative strategy for disc repair in a less expensive and easily applied method.