• Eur Spine J · Aug 2000

    Influence of age and duration of symptoms on fibre type distribution and size of the back muscles in chronic low back pain patients.

    • A F Mannion, L Käser, E Weber, A Rhyner, J Dvorak, and M Müntener.
    • Department of Neurology, Schulthess Klinik, Zürich, Switzerland. afm@kws.ch
    • Eur Spine J. 2000 Aug 1; 9 (4): 273-81.

    AbstractMany studies have documented an association between chronic low back pain (LBP) and deficits in back muscle strength and endurance. The sub-optimal performance is believed to be the result of alterations in the size and structure of the muscle, although the long-standing issue of whether the observed changes precede or are a consequence of the pain remains unresolved. If consequent to the problem, and predominantly related to disuse of the muscles, then it may be expected that a relationship between muscle structure and symptom duration would exist. Lumbar paraspinal muscle samples were obtained from 59 chronic LBP patients using the percutaneous biopsy technique. The samples were subject to routine histochemical analysis for the examination of muscle fibre type characteristics and cytochemical architectural changes. In 55 of the patients, the gross cross-sectional areas of magnetic resonance images of the trunk muscles were also measured. Multivariate analysis showed that symptom duration was the strongest predictor of the individual proportions of the fast-fatigable type IIX fibres; with age and gender included in the model, nearly 30% of the variance in fibre type distribution could be accounted for. Duration of pain had no influence on fibre size. Gross muscle cross-sectional area correlated directly with lean body mass and inversely with age, but showed no relationship with symptom duration. Pathological changes in the internal fibre structure were more frequently encountered in older patients, and were independent of symptom duration. The results suggest that, over the long term, fibre type transformations rather than alterations in fibre size are the predominant changes to be found in the muscles of chronic LBP patients. The direction of change supports the results of many previous studies that have demonstrated corresponding differences in the fatigability of the muscles. There is a strong case for the early implementation of active measures to attempt to offset the development of these changes in back pain patients.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…