[Lumbar intervertebral disk. Intervertebral disk-vertebral body pathways and discal vascularization].

We studied the disco-vertebral interface and the blood supply of the intervertebral disks L3-L4, L4-L5, and L5-S1 of 5 human adult columns. Moreover, in order to investigate the discal vasculature, infusion of Japanese ink was used in 2 other adult columns, as well as immuno-histological methods in the L5-S1 disk of 4 adults and 2 infants. Our study confirms the paucity of discal vasculature in adults, by contrast with that of infants, but shows numerous defects in the subchondral vertebral plate, which are filled by vascularised medullary soft tissue and are in contact with the cartilaginous discal end plate. By these contacts, nutrients could reach the intervertebral disk, as suggested by other works, and as is the case in other cartilaginous structures of the body.