Imaging study reveals high rates of disk bulges and protrusions in asymptomatic individuals, suggesting many MRI findings in back pain patients are coincidental.
On MRI examination of the lumbar spine, many people without back pain have disk bulges or protrusions but not extrusions. Given the high prevalence of these findings and of back pain, the discovery by MRI of bulges or protrusions in people with low back pain may frequently be coincidental.
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Jensen et al. (1994) studied this question.
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