European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society
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Low back pain (LBP) is a chronic disorder which exerts a profound impact on various spheres of psychosocial functioning, including emotional distress, functional limitations and decrements in social contacts. The objective of this study was to investigate the associations between the indices of psychosocial functioning in patients with chronic LBP and a range of psychological factors. Specifically, the study aimed at exploring the relative participation of personality, social support, disease-related cognitive appraisals and coping styles in accounting for the differences in psychosocial functioning of patients with LBP. ⋯ Among sociodemographic variables, older age and lower educational level were related to greater subjective feelings of being disabled. Pain severity was found unrelated to any of psychosocial functioning domains. Different aspects of psychosocial functioning are best accounted for by diverse patterns of psychological factors, which suggests involvement of different psychological mechanisms in development of LBP-related disability.
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Degeneration of lumbar intervertebral discs is thought to be a cause of low back pain. Studies have found that a cause of discogenic low back pain is intervertebral disc inflammation and axonal growth of afferent fibers innervating the disc. Lumbar spine fusion for chronic discogenic low back pain is considered an effective procedure. ⋯ PLF is strongly related to the downregulation of GAP43 and CGRP expression. Therefore, PLF may suppress the increase of inflammatory neuropeptides and the process of axonal growth. Moreover, these results may explain, in part, the mechanism of pain relief following lumbar spinal fusion for chronic discogenic low back pain in humans.
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The aim of this study is to determine the predictive values of laboratory indicators of pyogenic vertebral osteomyelitis (PVO) and a potential cure if the microorganism cannot be identified. Forty-five consecutive patients with PVO were enrolled. Antibiotic therapy with or without surgery was performed according to microorganism. ⋯ Even in patients with negative culture findings, it is expected that a good outcome will be achieved by the administration of cefazolin or vancomycin for about 6 weeks. It is concluded that antibiotics selected according to the etiological setting can be initiated without the need to start empirical antibiotics. In every instance at fourth week after the initiation of antibiotic therapy, the values of CRP and ESR can provide meaningful information regarding whether clinicians need to reevaluate the effectiveness of antibiotics by performing follow-up imaging studies and monitoring the patient's clinical manifestations.
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Evaluation of the kyphosis angle in thoracic and lumbar burst fractures is often used to indicate surgical procedures. The kyphosis angle could be measured as vertebral, segmental and local kyphosis according to the method of Cobb. The vertebral, segmental and local kyphosis according to the method of Cobb were measured at 120 lateral X-rays and sagittal computed tomographies of 60 thoracic and 60 lumbar burst fractures by 3 independent observers on 2 separate occasions. ⋯ For the practical use in lateral X-ray, we emphasize the determination of the segmental kyphosis, because of the highest reproducibility of this angle. "Good" to "excellent" inter- and intraobserver reliabilities for these three angles could also be evaluated in computed tomographies. Therefore, also in computed tomography, the use of these three angles seems to be generally possible. For a direct correlation of the results in lateral X-ray and in computed tomography, further studies should be needed.
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For an individual, the functional consequences of an episode of low back pain is a key measure of their clinical status. Self-reported disability measures are commonly used to capture this component of the back pain experience. In non-acute low back pain there is some uncertainty of the validity of this approach. ⋯ In the multivariate analyses no psychological measure made a significant unique contribution to the prediction of the performance-based measure, whereas depression made a unique contribution to the prediction of the self-reported measure. Our results suggest that self-reported and performance-based assessments of disability are influenced by different patient characteristics. In particular, it appears self-reported measures of disability are more influenced by the patient's psychological status than performance-based measures of disability.