Prognostic value of early computed tomography in radiculopathy due to lumbar intervertebral disk herniation. A prospective study.

Objective: To prospectively evaluate the relationship between the early computerized tomography (CT) features of disk herniation and the clinical outcome in patients with recent-onset sciatic or femoral neuralgia treated conservatively. Early CT is often used, despite the absence of data on usefulness for predicting outcomes.

Methods: Of 78 patients with sciatica or femoral neuralgia of less than 1 month's duration, presumably due to a disk herniation, 75 were found by CT to have a disk herniation at the expected level. All patients were treated conservatively. The 60 patients who were reassessed clinically after 3 months were included in the study. Based on the results of the clinical assessment, the patients were classified as having a good outcome (complete or partial recovery) or a poor outcome. CT findings were compared in these two groups.

Results: None of the features of disk herniation studied on the CT scans were significantly correlated with the clinical outcome. A larger herniation or presence of a free fragment was more common in the good outcome group, but the differences were not statistically significant (P= 0.07).

Conclusion: In this study, early CT scan did not predict the clinical outcome of patients with nerve root pain from lumbar disk herniation. None of the CT criteria was associated with a poor clinical outcome. Early CT scan has no prognostic value in this setting.