[Status of knowledge in expert assessment of occupational disease 2108-2110]

Necessary precondition for acceptance of spine disorders as occupational disease is an excessive occupational exposition, its compatibility with and and an explicit causal relation to this disorders. The latter may be assumed in case of multisegmental spondylosis of the column, combined with local impairment of function and pain, if the vertebral disorders of the occupationally exposed column-segment are significantly worse than those of other vertebral segments. Finally non-occupational, preexisting discrete vertebral disorders (e.g. scoliosis, spondylolisthesis) have to been excluded. So far there are no alternatives or rejections to this consensus, called "Hamburg formula". It should be used as long as no other valid, positive markers of occupationally caused disorders can be defined on the basis of reliable epidemiological investigations.