Pain Provocation and Disc Degeneration in Lumbar Discography

OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationship between pain provocation and level and disc degeneration in lumbar discography. METHOD: Seventy-one patients with lumbar discogenic pain and total 109 discography were studied. During contrast mediun injection, the patient's pain response was reported. The patients were invited to choose among the following options: 'no pain or only pressure feeling', 'dissimilar', 'similar', and 'exact'. And pain location was chosen among the followings: 'low back', 'buttock', 'anterior thigh', 'posterior thigh', and 'lateral thigh'. Correlation between degeneration and provocation response was analyzed. And discography level and provocation area were evaluated. RESULTS: Low back and buttock area was the most common provocation pain site, but it was not specific by disc level. And provocation pain frequently appeared in irregular and fissured types, but the existence of provocation pain was significantly low in ruptured type. CONCLUSION: There was no correlation between provocation pain area and discography level. And existence rate of provocation pain in ruptured disc was very low. It might be due to low mechanical compression with little stimulation of nociceptor. We suggested that if patients have a ruptured disc with chemical irritation, provocation pain was not a good indicator of diagnosis of discogenic back pain.

Extensive Longitudinal Myelitis Associated with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: A case report

Myelopathy is a rare but serious central nervous system complication associated with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE). Acute transverse myelitis is the most usual involvement of SLE-related myelopathy. We reported a 17-year-old girl who developed a very extensive SLE related transverse myelitis with longitudinal involvement of the spinal cordfrom C4 to the conus medullaris. There were motor and sensory loss of both lower extremities, and bladder dysfunction over the course of 5 days. She presented T9 paraplegia ASIA A. Her neurological dysfunction was not responded to treatment with methyprednisolone and cyclophosphomide.