Table 1

Categories used to classify structural abnormalities on lumbosacral MRI

MRI ABNORMALITIESCOMMON DESCRIPTIVE TERMS*
Degenerative disk

  • Bony—end plate changes, osteochondral bar, osteocartilaginous bar, osteophytes

  • Disk—annular tear, bulge, degeneration, dissection, height loss, high-intensity zone, spondylosis, signal change

Disk herniation

  • Disk—herniation, extrusion, protrusion, sequestered

Spinal stenosis

  • Central canal stenosis

  • Facet—arthropathy, hypertrophy

  • Lateral recess, foraminal stenosis

  • Ligamentous hypertrophy

Instability

  • Anterolisthesis

  • Lateral, rotatory listhesis

  • Retrolisthesis

  • Spondylolisthesis

Spinal deformity

  • Kyphosis

  • Scoliosis

Previous surgery

  • Decompression—discectomy, epidural scar, laminectomy, laminotomy

  • Fusion—bone fusion, bone mass, disk prosthesis, facet screw, fusion mass, instrumentation, metal artifact, pedicle screw

  • MRI—magnetic resonance imaging.

  • ↵* For extracting information from the MRI reports, the common descriptive terms were considered synonymous with the corresponding MRI abnormality on the left.