low back pain disability worse with early MRI
A systematic review and narrative synthesis was just published on the association between early MRI and length of disability in patients with acute lower back pain (see low back pain early MRI inc disability BMC2021 in dropbox,ordoi.org/10.1186/s12891-021-04863-9). Thanks to Pooja Raval for alerting me to this article Details: -- 7 US studies were included (3 used the same study population) that had good methodologic quality, comparing early MRI of the back versus guideline recommendations: 4 to 6 weeks of conservative management of acute low back pain if no clinical suspicion of serious underlying conditions (red flags: suspected fracture, tumor, infection, and neurological deficit) -- the number of participants in the studies ranged from 98 to 59,360 people, with a total of 64,232 low back pain cases overall -- mean age 40, 70% male -- all studies included those with uncomplicated low back pain, as identified by ICD-9 codes, nature o...