Cite

Copy

Tap on and choose 'Add to Home Screen' to create a shortcut app

Tap on and choose 'Add to Home Screen/Install App' to create a shortcut app

Degenerative Lumbar Disk Disease in Children Homepage

This page was last updated on May 9th, 2017

 

Authors

Steven W. Hwang, M.D.

Andrew Jea, M.D.

Section Editors

Douglas Brockmeyer, M.D.

Dominic Thompson, M.D.

Editor in Chief

Rick Abbott, M.D.

Introduction

Low back pain (LBP) has an estimated prevalence of 1.1–66% in children depending on the definition adopted (25, 28). Causes may include infectious, neoplastic, traumatic, inflammatory, musculoskeletal, congenital, and degenerative etiologies. Although lumbar degenerative pathology is less frequent in children and appears increasingly with age (6), various lumbar problems can still cause significant disability in the pediatric population.

This chapter addresses a more common cause of degenerative lumbar disease among children: disk disease. Although the management of disk disease is often inferred from adult experience and research studies, significant differences exist that must be taken into consideration when managing children. This chapter will highlight these differences.

Key Points

  • Manage conservatively at start: Initial back pain in children should be managed conservatively, provided no red flags (e.g., neurological deficit, fevers, weight loss, night pain, instability) are present.
  • Image when pain persists: Refractory/persistent back pain in children should be thoroughly evaluated with imaging studies.
  • Traumatic herniations calcify: Traumatic pediatric disk herniations are more often associated with calcified fragments, and an appropriate preoperative evaluation (i.e., radiographs or CT) should be considered.
  • Cauda equina syndrome = surgical emergency: Cauda equina syndrome is a surgical emergency. Patients should undergo decompression and diskectomy immediately.

Your donations keep us going

The ISPN Guide is free to use, but we rely on donations to fund our ongoing work and to maintain more than a thousand pages of information created to disseminate the most up-to-date knowledge in the field of paediatric neurosurgery.

By making a donation to The ISPN Guide you are also indirectly helping the many thousands of children around the world whose treatment depends on well-informed surgeons.

Please consider making a donation today.

Use the app

The ISPN Guide can be used as a standalone app, both on mobile devices and desktop computers. It’s quick and easy to use.

Fully featured

Free registration grants you full access to The Guide and host of featured designed to help further your own education.

Stay updated

The ISPN Guide continues to expand both in breadth and depth. Join our mailing list to stay up-to-date with our progress.