Department of Orthopaedics, Second Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, 86# Ren-min Road, Changsha, Hunan 410011, PR China.
Med Hypotheses. 2010 Nov;75(5):464-5. doi: 10.1016/j.mehy.2010.04.025. Epub 2010 May 13.
The types of lumbar disc herniation not only play a key role in planning therapeutic procedure, but also appear to be connected with prognosis. However, it is difficult to distinguish the types preoperatively. To the best of our knowledge, the intervertebral disc is the largest avascular structure in the human body. Once the nucleus pulposus extrudes from the annulus fibrosus or combining with posterior longitudinal ligament, the immune system recognizes it as a foreign body, which may induce the autoimmune reaction ending with production of auto-antibody, that is so-called antibody to nucleus pulposus. The blood test for antibody to nucleus pulposus is ultimately accurate because the result is not relied upon the patient's complain but specific to herniated nucleus pulposus tissue. If this hypothesis is proved to be correct, it could be possible to improve the accuracy of distinguishing types of lumbar disc herniation just by a pre-operative blood test for antibody to nucleus pulposus.
腰椎间盘突出症的类型不仅对治疗方案的制定起着关键作用，而且似乎与预后有关。然而，术前很难区分类型。据我们所知，椎间盘是人体最大的无血管结构。一旦椎间盘核从纤维环突出或与后纵韧带结合，免疫系统就会将其识别为异物，这可能会引发自身免疫反应，最终产生自身抗体，即所谓的椎间盘抗体。椎间盘抗体的血液检测最终是准确的，因为结果不依赖于患者的抱怨，而是针对突出的椎间盘组织。如果这一假设被证明是正确的，那么通过术前椎间盘抗体血液检测来提高腰椎间盘突出症类型区分的准确性是有可能的。
