Microscopic changes in the multifidus muscle in people with low back pain associated with lumbar disc herniation

Abstract

Lumbar disc herniation (LDH) is a common degenerative condition causing low back pain (LBP) due to nerve compression. Previous studies show conflicting findings regarding the multifidus (MF) muscle’s microscopic changes in LDH patients. So, this study aimed to compare the affected MF to the adjacent MF on the ipsilateral and contralateral sides in LDH patients and examined correlations with clinical features of LBP. Four muscle biopsies were collected from each of 30 surgical participants. Immunohistochemistry was performed on tissue sections and imaged with an epifluorescence microscope. Data was analysed using a two-way ANOVA for muscle fibre cross-sectional area, perimeter, diameter, and composition, while pathological fibres were analysed using a one-way ANOVA. Pearson’s correlation was employed to examine MF microscopy associations with clinical features. Results revealed no significant differences between the affected MF and MF from other sites, though significantly more pathological fibres were present in the affected MF (p < 0.05). A weak but significant negative correlation was found between type I fibres and LBP clinical features, though no such correlations were observed for type IIA fibres. In conclusion, LDH primarily impacts the pathological status of the MF rather than fibre phenotype or size, and severity of clinical features is associated with the size of type I fibres.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-83373-9
Divisions: College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Medical School
Additional Information: Copyright © The Author(s) 2024. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords: Multifidus,Pathological fibres,Clinical correlations,Fibre types,Lumbar disc herniation,Low back pain
Publication ISSN: 2045-2322
Last Modified: 31 Mar 2025 07:27
Date Deposited: 13 Jan 2025 09:07
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: https://www.nat ... 598-024-83373-9 (Publisher URL)
http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2024-12-30
Published Online Date: 2024-12-30
Accepted Date: 2024-12-13
Authors: Purushotham, Shilpa
Hodson, Nathan
Greig, Carolyn
Gardner, Adrian (ORCID Profile 0000-0001-6532-7950)
Falla, Deborah

Download

[img]

Version: Published Version

License: Creative Commons Attribution

| Preview

Export / Share Citation


Statistics

Additional statistics for this record