Highlights
- Healthy active individuals without any symptoms of back pain displayed bone marrow edema lesions on MRI.
- Mechanical stress does not seem to increase bone marrow edema.
Osteitis Without Back pain
The research team in this study assessed the baseline condition of the sacroiliac joints in healthy people without symptoms of back pain to study the effect of mechanical stress caused by intense physical training.
This pilot study was a 6-week observational study in young Belgian military recruits, selected for initiation of basic military training after thorough physical and psychological examination.
Twenty-two military recruits underwent an MRI before and after 6 weeks of intense standardized physical training. Researchers scored bone marrow edema based on the Spondyloarthritis Research Consortium of Canada (SPARCC) method.
At the beginning 40.9% of recruits already presented a SPARCC score indicating Bone marrow edema; this number increased to 50% after six weeks.
A substantial proportion of healthy active people without any symptoms of back pain displayed bone marrow edema lesions at the beginning of the study. However, MRI lesions did not increase significantly after 6 weeks of intensive physical training.
The study underscores the necessity to interpret MRI findings of the sacroiliac joints in the appropriate clinical context, even in a young active population.
This is the first study to evaluate the effect of mechanical stress on magnetic resonance imaging of the sacroiliac joints. Overall, there was a high prevalence of MRI lesions in healthy active people without any symptoms of back pain, both at baseline and after 6 weeks of follow-up. However, MRI lesions do not seem to increase significantly after 6 weeks of intensive physical training.
"Magnetic resonance imaging of the sacroiliac joints should only be requested in the appropriate clinical context," said Ghent University Hospital’s Gaëlle Varkas, MD, one of the authors of the study.
Reference
- Gaëlle Varkas, Manouk de Hooge, Thomas Renson, Sophie De Mits, Philippe Carron, Peggy Jacques, Muriel Moris, Geert Souverijns, Lennart Jans, Dirk Elewaut, Filip Van den Bosch. ’Effect of mechanical stress on magnetic resonance imaging of the sacroiliac joints: assessment of military recruits by magnetic resonance imaging study.’ Rheumatology (2017). https://doi.org/10.1093/rheumatology/kex491.
Source-Medindia