Clinical and Radiographic Correlation (According to CT) in Patients with Degenerative Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

Сomputed tomography (CT) is widely used in the diagnosis of  degenerative pathology of the lumbar spine, but the relationship  between clinical manifestations of lumbar stenosis and its anatomical prerequisites has not been sufficiently studied to date.

The objective: to determine the significance of the morphometric  parameters of lumbar stenosis according to CT scans and to  establish their relationship with the prevailing symptoms of the disease.

Material and methods. Seventy-five consecutive patients with  clinically significant lumbar stenosis who underwent CT scan before  surgery were enrolled in this study. The average values of thirteen  different morphometric parameters were calculated at LIII–SI levels of the intervertebral discs and of the pedicels in the axial and sagittal views. The possibility of classification of clinical observations and the correlation of morphometric parameters with the clinical forms of lumbar stenosis were investigated using discriminant and logistic regression analysis.

Results. CT scan with high probability allocates patients with  predominant symptoms of neurogenic claudication or bilateral  radiculopathy. The most significant morphometric predictors of this  clinical group are the depth of the lateral recesses and the cross-sectional area of the spinal canal.

Conclusion. CT scan significantly expands the informative value of  magnetic resonance imaging and can be used in planning the  decompressive stage of the surgery intervention in patients with lumbar spinal canal stenosis.

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