Comparison between two types of "Scheuermann disease-like people": thoracolumbar disc herniation patients and healthy volunteers with radiological signs of Scheuermann's disease / 中华医学杂志(英文版)
<p><b>BACKGROUND</b>Scheuermann's disease (SD) is a spinal disorder and includes both a classic form and an atypical form. Interestingly, its existence among the general population as well as the disc diseasepatients is common. One of our previous studies showed that about 18% of the hospital staff members meet the SD criteria. On the other hand, another study has demonstrated that 95.2% of the symptomatic thoracolumbar disc herniation (STLDH) patients meet the SD criteria, which suggests that STLDH is very likely a special form of SD. The purpose of this study was to discriminate the factors contributing to the development of STLDH by comparing STLDH patients with the healthy SD-like hospital staff members.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>This is a retrospective study including 33 STLDH patientswho met the SD criteria and 30 SD-like hospital staff members. The STLDH group was chosen from a group of patientswho underwent surgery after a diagnosis of STLDH (T10/11-L1/2) at our hospital between June 2007 and June 2010. SD-like hospital staff members were chosen from a database created in 2007, which contained a lumbar MR and low back pain (LBP) questionnaire of 188 hospital staff members. The demographic and radiologic characteristics were compared between groups.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>There was no statistical difference in sex, age, and height between the two groups. The STLDH patients had higher body weight, boby mass index, and thoracolumbar kyphotic angle than SD-like hospital staff members. In addition, STLDH patients had more levels of Schmorl's nodes (3.5±1.7 vs. 2.0±1.9, t = 3.364, P = 0.001) and irregular endplateson (4.0±1.9 vs. 2.7±1.9, t = 2.667, P = 0.010) compared to the SD-like hospital staff members.</p><p><b>CONCLUSIONS</b>Higher body weight, higher body mass index, larger thoracolumbar kyphosis, and more Schmorl's nodes and irregular endplates on MR may be associated with the development of STLDH in "SD-like people."</p>