Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Induced discography can be used in discogenic pain and has been used as the only method for confirming discogenic pain. However, the subjective feeling during pressure changing is not accurate, quantitative or standardized, leading to false positive rate.
OBJECTIVE: To explore the role of the control-pressure discography in improving the accuracy rate of discogenic pain and decreasing the false positive in the discography.
METHODS: A total of randomly selected 71 discs of 33 patients underwent the control-pressure discography. According to the standard of positive discography, there were 18 positive patients, including 23 positive discs and 15 degenerated discs and 3 normal discs; 15 negative patients, including 23 degenerated discs and 7 normal discs. The control-pressure value and the dose value of each disc were recorded.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The low pressure in positive discs (≤ 299.93kPa) was significantly different from other degenerated discs (P < 0.05). The mean pressure of positive discs was lower than normal disc (< 299.93kPa). When the pressure was > 299.93 kPa but ≤499.89 kPa, the number of positive discs was significantly less than other two degenerated groups. No difference was detected in mean dose among three groups (P > 0.05). Results showed that the accurate rate of the positive patients definite to be discogenic pain was higher by low pressure (≤ 299.93 kPa). The false positive rate was higher by pressure > 299.93 kPa but ≤499.89 kPa. It is no value of injected dose to distinguish the positive discography.