Disc Degeneration in Lumbar Spine of Asymptomatic Young Adults: A Descriptive Cross-Sectional Study

This descriptive cross-sectional observational study aimed to investigate the prevalence of various types of disc degeneration in the lumbar spine of asymptomatic young adults. The disc degeneration of lumbar spine could be due to age-related physiological changes than to pathological changes in asymptomatic people. Due to the ethnic and racial differences in lifestyle, it is proposed that the prevalence of disc degeneration in the normal population in different region of the world would differ. There are scarce data on the Indian population on the same.

Fifty individuals between 15 and 30 years of age, with no history of low back pain undergoing MR imaging for spinal pathology other than the lumbar spine, were included in the study. Various abnormalities (herniation HN, annular fissure AF, nuclear degeneration ND) were recorded and their prevalence was calculated by disc counts (DC) and person count (PC). DC is the number of discs with degeneration and PC is the number of patients with disc degeneration.

56% asymptomatic individuals were found to have either HN or AF or ND at one or more levels. The DC of disc degeneration was 20.8% and it was most commonly observed in L4-L5 intervertebral disc (38%) followed by L5-S1 disc (30%). Thirteen individuals had disc degeneration at single level, 12 at two levels and 3 individuals at all the five lumbar intervertebral disc levels.

The current study showed a high prevalence of disc degeneration (either HN, AF or ND) in young asymptomatic individuals. Even if the MRI shows disc degeneration, patients can be asymptomatic and one needs to correlate the symptoms with the MRI. The limitations of the current study are small numbers of patients from a localized geographical area; hence, we recommend a larger multi-centric study as a follow-up.