In a new study in the Spine journal, researchers in Germany followed patients for 6 years to see which patients developed low back pain during that time. At the beginning of the study, each participant had an MRI and findings were categorized for each patient. Of the more than 3,000 patients included in the study, 3 out of 4 patients had at least one abnormal finding on an MRI, regardless of whether or not they had back pain. In other words, abnormal findings were commonly found in patients without any symptoms at all. And furthermore, the presence of abnormal findings did not strongly predict the development of low back pain in the future.

This is yet another study which highlights the mystery of low back pain, it’s cause, and lack of correlation between severity of symptoms and imaging findings.