The Prevalence and Characteristics of Thoracic Magnetic Resonance Imaging Findings in Men
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In Brief Study Design. A cross-sectional study of thoracic magnetic resonance image (MRI) findings. Objective. To examine the prevalence of different thoracic MRI findings for T6–T12 and their associations with age and one another by level. Summary of Background Data. There is a dearth of descriptive epidemiology of thoracic MRI findings in the general population. Methods. Thoracic MRIs of 524 men were assessed qualitatively and quantitatively for a variety of findings, including disc bulging, height and signal, vertebral deformities, endplate irregularities, osteophytes, and hemangiomas. Descriptive statistics, correlation coefficients and STATA's survey analysis were used. Results. In the lower thoracic spine, 5.4% to 9.5% of the discs, depending on level, were qualitatively assessed as moderately to severely narrowed. Anterior bulging was more common than posterior, which was relatively rare and mild when present. Signal was lower in the midthoracic than lower discs. At least 1 moderate or severe vertebral deformity was found in 6.1% of the subjects, suggesting fracture, and hemangiomas were identified in 2.3% of subjects. Disc signal correlated most highly with age (r = 0.31–0.42). Qualitatively assessed disc height narrowing (r = 0.29–0.46) and quantitative disc height (r = 0.11–0.29) were associated with disc signal. Upper and lower endplate irregularities were associated with one another (r = 0.17–0.32), as were bulging and osteophytes, anteriorly (r = 0.35–0.61) and posteriorly (r = 0.26–0.45). Conclusion. Degenerative MRI findings beyond a mild grade were not commonly observed in the thoracic spine among 35–70-year-old men. Posterior bulges, in particular, were rare. The highest correlation with age existed for disc signal. Different MRI findings were associated with one another, but the magnitude of association varied by level. The effects of individual judgments and disc level on prevalence rates were apparent. The prevalence of thoracic magnetic resonance image findings in a population-based sample of men and their associations with age and one another are provided. Thoracic magnetic resonance image findings, especially posterior bulges, were uncommonly observed. Disc signal was the finding most highly associated with age. Prevalence rates depend on disc level and individual judgments.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 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 teacher head, 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".