Aim: Our objective, is to investigate the relationship between lumbar paraspinal muscles lipoatrophy and low back pain.
Materials and methods: 74 patients with low back pain and 17 healthy volunteers were included in this cross-sectional study. The patients were grouped according to the duration of pain; group I≤ 4 weeks, group II: 4-12 weeks and group III>12 weeks of duration of pain. Their lumbar MR images were visually analyzed for signs of lumbar paraspinal muscles atrophy. The fat content was graded semiquantitatively (grade 0-4) for each muscle as following multifidus, longissimus and psoas muscles. The relationship between fat content and duration of low back pain was assessed and compared with asymptomatic volunteers. Student’s t test, Spearman correlation analysis and Kruskal Wallis ANOVA tests were used in the statistical analysis.
Results: There were significant correlations between multifidus, longissimus and psoas muscles atrophy and the duration of the low back pain (r=0.311, p=0.007 for psoas; r=0.382, p=0.001 for multifidus and r=0.398, p
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