A study published in The Spine Journal examines the motion characteristics of lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis at the diseased and adjacent levels using kinetic MRI.
There are 112 patients included in the study with single-level lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis at L3-4, L45 or L5-S1. The researchers compared their data to 296 control patients without spondylolisthesis.
The researchers found:
• Lumbar hypomobility was present often regardless of the level of degenerative spondylolisthesis.
• Slips at L3-4 caused a large decrease in lumbar range of motion.
• The most common level for instability was L3-4, followed by L5-S1.
• At the adjacent segment, instability was most frequent at L4-5, occurring in 49 percent of the patients.
• The stable spondylolisthesis group had decreased angular motion at all levels.
• The degeneration was significantly greater at the slip level for L3-4 and L4-5 in the spondylolisthesis group and equal to the control group in L5-S1.
• For patients with L3-4 and L4-5 degenerative spondylolisthesis, there was no significant difference in disc degeneration at the adjacent segments.
• At L5-S1, there was a significant decrease in disc degeneration for patients with a slip.
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