Acta Chir Orthop Traumatol Cech. 2023; 90(6):383-390 | DOI: 10.55095/achot2023/046

Investigation of the Effect of Facet Joint Angle Characteristics on the Development of Lumbar Spinal Stenosis in Patients with Lumbar Canal StenosisOriginal papers

A. EROĞLU, M. ATAR, M. SAPANCI, C. ATABEY
Health Sciences University, Sultan Abdulhamid Han Training and Research Hospital, Neurosurgery Service, Üsküdar- İstanbul, Turkey

Objectives: The aim of our study was to investigate facet tropism and its impact on the development of lumbar spinal canal stenosis (LSCS) in patients with LSCS.

Materials and Methods: Bilateral facet joint angles at the L3-4, L4-5, and L5-S1 levels were measured on axial plane in the lumbar magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of 82 patients aged between 32 and 75 with LSCS, and 82 healthy individuals aged between 30 and 66 without LSCS, who were considered as the normal group.

Results: Both groups in our study consisted of both males and females. The mean age was 51.4 for patients with LSCS and 44.7 for the healthy group, with no significant difference (p>0.05). A total of 984 facet joint angles were measured, with 164 patients at three intervertebral disc levels each. The presence of facet tropism was found to be a significant risk factor in the LSCS group compared to the healthy group, with an increased risk of 2.125 times at L3-4, 3.389 times at L4-5, and 2.496 times at L5-S1 (p<0.05).

Conclusions: In our study, we determined that facet joint tropism is statistically significant in patients with LSCS compared to the control group (p<0.05). We believe that facet tropism plays a predisposing role as a contributing factor in the etiology of LSCS.

Keywords: lumbar spinal stenosis, facet tropism, magnetic resonance imaging.

Published: December 1, 2023  Show citation

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EROĞLU A, ATAR M, SAPANCI M, ATABEY C. Investigation of the Effect of Facet Joint Angle Characteristics on the Development of Lumbar Spinal Stenosis in Patients with Lumbar Canal Stenosis. Acta Chir Orthop Traumatol Cech. 2023;90(6):383-390. doi: 10.55095/achot2023/046. PubMed PMID: 38191539.
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