Department of Orthopaedics, First Affiliated Hospital, Medical College of Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an 710061, PR China.
Int J Biol Sci. 2009 Oct 13;5(7):647-58. doi: 10.7150/ijbs.5.647.
Discogenic lower back pain (DLBP) is the most common type of chronic lower back pain (LBP), accounting for 39% of cases, compared to 30% of cases due to disc herniation, and even lower prevalence rates for other causes, such as zygapophysial joint pain. Only a small proportion (approximately 20%) of LBP cases can be attributed with reasonable certainty to a pathologic or anatomical entity. Thus, diagnosing the cause of LBP represents the biggest challenge for doctors in this field. In this review, we summarize the process of obtaining a clinical diagnosis of DLBP and discuss the potential for serum-based diagnosis in the near future. The use of serum biomarkers to diagnose DLBP is likely to increase the ease of diagnosis as well as produce more accurate and reproducible results.
椎间盘源性下腰痛（DLBP）是最常见的慢性下腰痛（LBP）类型，占 39%，相比之下，椎间盘突出症占 30%，其他原因（如关节突关节痛）的患病率甚至更低。只有一小部分（约 20%）的 LBP 病例可以合理地归因于病理或解剖实体。因此，诊断 LBP 的病因是该领域医生面临的最大挑战。在这篇综述中，我们总结了获得 DLBP 临床诊断的过程，并讨论了在不久的将来基于血清的诊断的可能性。使用血清生物标志物来诊断 DLBP 可能会增加诊断的便利性，并产生更准确和可重复的结果。
