Journal of Spine

Lumbosacral Transitional Vertebrae in Low Back Pain Population

Abstract

Bekir Yavuz Ucar

Background: The relationship between lumbosacral transitional vertebrae and low back pain is not clear. This controversy has been quite intriguing and has been the stimulus for carrying out this present study. The aim of this study was to determine, by plain radiography, if there is a relationship between lumbosacral transitional vertebrae and low back pain.
Material and methods: Five hundred lumbosacral radiographs of low back pain patients were examined.
Dysplastic transverse process was classified according to the Castellvi radiographic classification system. The incidence of lumbosacral transitional vertebra in patients with low back pain was reported, and the patients who had anomaly were compared according to gender and age.
Results: Of these patients, 118 were classified as positive for transitional lumbosacral vertebra, resulted in an incidence of 23.6%. The most common anatomical variant was Castellvi Type IA (6.8%). No statistically significant difference was found between these two age groups according to incidence of lumbosacral transitional vertebra (p=0.207). There were no statistically significant differences between men and women who had anomaly (p=0.289). Higher incidences of Type IB and Type IIB were found in men, but those results were not statistically significant (p=0.112, p=0.514) when compared with the female group.
Conclusion: Based on our data, we conclude that lumbosacral transitional segments are common in the low back pain population. But no relationship found between age and genders.