Magnetic Resonance Imaging 20 Years After Anterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
STUDY DESIGN: A 20-year magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and functional outcome follow-up study was performed on patients who had undergone anterior lumbar interbody fusion. OBJECTIVES: The objectives of the present study are to determine whether or not degeneration is related to adjacent level fusion and the clinical significance of this degeneration. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: There are concerns that lumbar fusion leads to increase stress at the adjacent levels. However, the clinical significance of this remains unclear. METHODS: Thirty-nine patients who underwent lower lumbar anterior lumbar interbody fusion and who had normal preoperative discograms at the level adjacent level were evaluated with a minimum of a 20-year follow-up. MRI scans were performed and independently evaluated for any evidence of degeneration. Functional status was assessed using the Low Back Outcome Scale. RESULTS: Twenty-nine (74.3%) patients had some evidence of degeneration in their lumbar spine and advanced degeneration was identified in 12 (30.7%) patients. Nine (23.1%) patients had advanced degeneration isolated to the adjacent level and 7 (17.9%) patients had evidence of advanced degeneration with preservation at the level adjacent to the fusion. There was no association between function and radiographic degeneration. Only 3 patients required additional surgery as a result of adjacent level degeneration. CONCLUSION: The prevalence of degenerative changes is similar to other studies involving normal asymptomatic subjects. Furthermore, the majority of degenerative changes seen occurred over multiple levels or at levels not adjacent to the fusion, suggesting that changes seen may be more likely related to constitutional factors as opposed to the increased stresses arising from the original fusion.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".