Lumbosacral Angle in Lowback Pain

Abstract

Fifty patients with low back pain were evaluated for a possible relationship between the increase of lumbar lordosis (Ferguson's angle) and a group of chronic low back pain disorders such us fibromyalgias, lumbar disc degeneration, lumbar disc bulging, lumbar arthrosis and pain due to segmental instabilite. Another group consisted of thirty-eight healthy subjects who has never claimed previous backpain history were undergone spinal x-ray as a control group. The angle between a line parallel to the cranial end plate of S 1 vertebrae and a horizontal line was defined for the Ferguson's angle. In both groups patients were 30 years old or over. We also measured spinal instability in both groups by a vertical line from the middle of the corpus of L 3 vertebrae. The results showed that in the low back pain group there was a statistically significant increase in the Ferguson's angle and 62% of this group had spinal instability. In the control group the Ferguson's angle was in normal range and only 4% of them had spinal instability.