Does the iliolumbar ligament prevent anterior displacement of the fifth lumbar vertebra with defects of the pars?T. Aihara, MD, Senior Resident; K. Takahashi, MD, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; M. Yamagata, MD, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; and H. Moriya, MD, Professor and Head of DepartmentDepartment of Orthopaedic Surgery Y. Shimada, MD, Professor and Head of Department First Department of Anatomy, School of Medicine, Chiba University, Chiba 260-8677, Japan. Correspondence should be sent to Dr T. Aihara at the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Chosei Hospital, 2777 Honnnou, Mobara-city, Chiba 299-4114, Japan. We studied 23 patients with spondylolysis of the fifth lumbar vertebra (L5) and 20 with spondylolytic spondylolisthesis at this level. All were more than 40 years of age. The transverse processes at L5 were significantly wider in the former group than in the latter. We also dissected 56 cadavers to study the morphological relationship between the transverse process of L5 and the iliolumbar ligament, and found that the wider transverse process is associated with increased width of the posterior band of the iliolumbar ligament. If a patient with pars defects has wide transverse processes at L5, the lumbosacral junction may be stabilised by wide posterior bands of the iliolumbar ligament and the fifth lumbar vertebra by the ligament, preventing anterior displacement. This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
||||||||||||
