Imaging of disk disease and degenerative spondylosis of the lumbar spine.

Low back pain is a common but poorly understood entity. Features of degeneration depend on which component of the motion segment is predominantly affected, and include disk space narrowing, vacuum phenomenon, disk desiccation, vertebral osteophyte formation, disk herniation, and facet arthrosis, but these features do not necessarily have any relationship to symptoms. Since most episodes of back pain resolve on their own, and most disk herniations spontaneously regress, imaging of low back pain, although widely performed, is probably not necessary in most cases.