New aspects of lumbar disc disease. MR imaging and histological findings

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and plain X-ray and CT studies were performed in patients with a history of lumbar back pain due to spinal disc disease. Spin-echo pulse sequences (SE), phase-contrast techniques (partial saturation sequences with delayed readout, PS), and fat-suppressing inversion recovery sequences (STIR) were employed. In 74 of 325 patients, PS and STIR images displayed vertebral marrow changes adjacent to the end-plates of the affected segments. Bacterial infection, however, could be excluded. In six patients histological diagnosis showed substitution of hematopoietic marrow by fatty tissue, cartilaginous particles, degeneration of fat cells, and an increase in extracellular fluid with different components. The etiology is still unclear, but a correlation with lumbar disc disease is demonstrated. These vertebral marrow changes were best displayed with STIR and phase-contrast MR sequences, both providing contrast changes superior to T2-weighted SE techniques.