Design and validation of a system to create circumferential tears in lumbar intervertebral discs

Project description

Low back pain is a cause of significant impairment, reduced quality of life, lost productivity, and direct medical costs in the global population. Low back pain is strongly correlated to herniation of lumbar intervertebral discs (IVDs) which is also related to disc degeneration and to circumferential tears in the Annulus Fibrosus (AF).  The study of annular circumferential tears would be very useful for future spinal research but such studies but have been limited in scope due to the difficulties of inducing such tears in healthy IVDs and the confounding factors involved in studying degenerated IVD’s.  The purpose of this project was to develop a low-cost method, capable of reliably creating inner annular delaminations in IVDs.

Co-supervisors

Michael Russo