[Bone and joint diseases in children. Low back pain in children].

Previously, there was few data as for low back pain (LBP) in childhood and adolescent in Japan, we conducted a cross-sectional study a total of 43,630 pupils, including all elementary school students from the 4(th) to 6(th) grade and all junior high students from the 1(st) to 3(rd) year in Niigata City to examine the detail of LBP. The point prevalence was 10.2% (52.3% male and 47.7% female) and the lifetime prevalence was 28.8% (48.5% male and 51.5% female) and there was a tendency to have more severe LBP in both cases who experienced pain for more than 1 month and those with recurrent low back pain. In comparison to the pupils who did not participate in sports activities, the odds ratio with LBP was significantly higher in the pupils who participated in sports activities (1.57) . This suggests that sports activity may be one of the risk factors for the occurrence of LBP in childhood and adolescence.