[A rheumatologist's point of view on lumbago]

The rheumatologist has to be sure the low back pain of more than three months duration has a mechanical origin, i.e. that it is not due to a tumoral, infectious, metabolic or traumatic vertebral disease. He has to recognise a low back pain from visceral origin and, at the opposite, a functional disorder. The mechanical low back pain may arise from the intervertebral disk, the articular process, a spondylolisthesis, etc... The management includes various physical and medicamentous means; the surgical procedures must be exceptional and have to be done only in highly selected patients. There is a great amount of post-operative sources of low-back pain.