Investigation of morphological changes on cervical and lumbar vertebrae and intervertebral discs by magnetic resonance imaging

The age-related degeneration seen in the normal population of the columna vertebralis affects both the vertebrae and the discus intervertebrales (Di). In addition, the wide range of motion of the cervical and lumbar region, the lumbar region also carrying the body's weight, causes these regions to be exposed to trauma and many pathologies. It may also cause the need for surgery. The present study aims to obtain original sample data that could be used to distinguish the normal morphological changes of corpus vertebra and discus intervertebralis from the pathological ones in the clinic concerning age and gender. The study may shed light on biomechanical studies in this field and surgical planning in terms of preventing complications by selecting the appropriate equipment for the case, especially for the population of our country. The present study is a retrospective study of morphometric measurements on 120 cervical and 251 lumbar spinal midsagittal magnetic resonance images. In the study, we used the images of the cases aged 18-50 years without any pathology. According to our results, age-related changes in cervical and lumbar vertebral corpus heights in this range were not statistically significant. While observing that the cervical and lumbar corpus vertebra heights were higher in men than in women, this difference was significant for all segments in the cervical and lumbal region, except for the differences in front heights of L3 and L4 and the posterior heights of L5 in the 40-50 age group. It has been observed that the anterior wedge index is not a determining parameter in the normal aging process for both cervical and lumbar vertebrae in this age range. The relation of concavity index with age was significant for cervical vertebrae only at C3 and C4 segments for males, but not for lumbar vertebrae. The significance of the difference between genders of these two indexes varied according to the segments. The age-related change in cervical Di heights is not statistically significant except for the posterior height of Di6 in females and Di1 in males. That the lumbal Di heights increased with increasing age was observed. This increase of anterior heights was significant in all segments except for Di5 in women and Di1 in men, the increase of posterior heights was significant in Di4 and Di5 for men only. While all of the cervical Di heights were observed to be greater in men than in women, the significance of these differences varied according to age groups and segments. Lumbal Di heights were generally higher in men than women, only in the 19-29 age group, the anterior height of Di5, posterior heights of Di4 and Di5 were higher in women than men. The significance of the differences in disc heights between men and women in the lumbar region varies according to age group and segments for the anterior heights, but not for the posterior heights. Cervical and lumbar disc depth values generally increased with aging in men and women These changes were found to be statistically significant for cervical discs at all segments in women and only Di1 in men. Lumbar discs at all segments except Di2 for women but not for men were statistically significant. Both cervical and lumbar disc depth values were greater in males than females in all levels and age groups. The change in wedge index values of cervical discus intervertebrales with age is not statistically significant in both men and women. The significance of the change with age in the wedge index values of lumbal discus intervertebrales varied according to the segments both in men and women. The differences between the genders of the wedge index values of all discs and their significance varied according to age groups and segments. This has refrained us from generalizing. We think that our results will contribute to the studies of clinicians and surgeons interested in these structures' pathological conditions.