Recent progress in vertebral body section roentgenography in the study of the pathology of the lumbar vertebrae.

The potentialities of vertebral body section roentgenography have recently been enlarged to include the direct study of soft tissues within the vertebral canal. The writers report a series of observations on the pathology of disc protrusion, spinal stenosis and cicatricial stenosis following laminectomy, carried out by means of a third generation scanner, the Somatom SF. This apparatus makes it possible to integrate the data furnished by traditional radiological investigations and by scanners of previous generations, thus demonstrating new aspects of the pathology of the lumbar nerve roots.

[Value of computerized tomography in the diagnosis of lumbar disk hernia].

Two hundred-twelve patients with clinical suspect of herniated disk in the lumbar spine were examined by computed tomography (CT). Eighty-one patients underwent a surgical operation. The CT findings were correlated with myelographic and surgical findings.