Posner J B
Med Clin North Am. 1987 Mar;71(2):185-205. doi: 10.1016/s0025-7125(16)30865-3.
Back pain, one of man's most common afflictions, can be caused by a wide variety of disorders ranging from exercise-induced lumbar strain to spinal cord compression by metastatic tumor. A rational approach to the diagnosis and management of the patient with back pain allows the physician to treat self-limited disorders without excessive workup while identifying those patients with malignant disease sufficiently early to prevent permanent neurological damage.
