Original Article

MEASUREMENT OF LUMBAR INTERVERTEBRAL DISC HEIGHTS BY COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY: MORPHOMETRIC STUDY

  • Selçuk ÖZDOĞAN
  • Yusuf Emrah GERGIN
  • Ali Haluk DÜZKALIR
  • Nail DEMIREL
  • Murat KÖKEN

Received Date: 23.06.2015 Accepted Date: 12.09.2015 J Turk Spinal Surg 2015;26(4):289-292

Purpose:

We aimed to obtain data from computed tomography of healthy human lumbar intervertebral disc heights.

Materials and Method:

We inspected 50 female and 50 male between the ages of 18 and 60 who have admitted to emergency room for minor traumas. Data collected from files of the patients who did not have any history of operations or disease for the lumbar spine rethrospectively.

Results:

This study included a total of 100 patients, of whom 50 were female (50 %) and 50 were male (50 %). Mean age was 44.84 ± 9.9 years for males, and 45.1 ± 10.7 for females. There was no statistically significant difference between males and females of age (p=0.950). Intervertebral disc heights between L1 and L2 vertebrae were 9.46 ± 0.86 mm in males, and 9.81 ± 0.95 mm in females. The L1-L2 intervertebral disc heights were were significantly higher in females (p=0.006). The L2-L3 intervertebral disc heights were 9.68 ± 0.9 mm, and 9.42 ± 0.68 mm in males and females, respectively, which were statistically similar (p=0.072). L3-L4, L4-L5, and L5-S1 intervertebral disc heights were significantly higher in males, when compared to females.

Conclusions:

This study has been conducted to evaluate lumbar disc heights with morphometric measurements by using computed tomography to support anatomic knowledge for safe surgery performed to intervertebral disc space.

Keywords: Lumbar intervertebral disc height, lumbar vertebra morphology, computed tomography measurement