Abstract

Background: A large number of patients are referred to MRI in order to diagnose discopathy whereas a remarkable percentage of them may not need this method of imaging. Method: MRI of the patients who were clinically diagnosed with lumbar discopathy was investigated and the observed results were compared to those of before the MRI clinically diagnosis in regard with the level of the agreement between these two stages. Results: A total of 597 MRI cases were examined during a period of 3.5 months. However, according to the study criteria 462 individuals (77.4) were included in the study. Examinations were shown that 76 cases have normal pathology, disc herniation was observed in 214 patients and in 172 cases other findings were achieved. From among the patients who were clinically diagnosed with lumbar discopathy and referred to MRI, an average of 16.4 of the MRI results did not include any pathological points. The highest percentage of MRI with normal result belonged to the rheumatology group (19.4). Normal MRI reports were more among women than men and the highest rate of agreement was related to the age group of 50-70 (87.5). Discussion: The results of the study indicated that specialists had not appropriately observed the guidelines of discopathy examination especially in young patients.