We studied the intradiscal pressure in order to understand the biophysics of the lumbar intervertebral disk. We evaluated the relationship between disk morphology and intradiscal pressure in 90 lumbar intervertebral disks of 64 patients. The intrinsic intradiscal pressure in the ruptured disks was much lower than that in the normal or bulging disk, but intrinsic intradiscal pressure alone did not correlate in a statistically significant way to the absence, or presence and/or type of disk herniation. The elastance of normal disks was statistically significantly higher than that of the protruded disk(p<0.05) ; however, the elastance of lumbar disk was not affected by type of disk protrusion. Factors affecting disk elastance were the degeneration and the integrity of the annulus fibrosus and the posterior longitudinal ligament. The authors experienced no complication during the procedure. The measurement of the intradiscal pressure to evaluated the biophysical function of lumbar intervertebral disks is only a simple and risk-free procedure. Also it is suggested that patients with bulging disks of high elastance may be treated by reducing intradiscal pressure with percutaneous procedures such as chemonucleolysis, and automated discectomy using Nucleotome.
Biophysics ; Diskectomy ; Humans ; Intervertebral Disc Chemolysis ; Intervertebral Disc* ; Longitudinal Ligaments