Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2018. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Anesthesiol. Oct 27, 2018; 7(3): 20-23
Published online Oct 27, 2018. doi: 10.5313/wja.v7.i3.20
Current challenges in diagnosis of lumbar radiculopathy
Jiann-Her Lin, Chih-Cheng Chen
Jiann-Her Lin, Department of Neurosurgery, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Taipei, Taiwan
Jiann-Her Lin, Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, Taipei Medical University, Taipei, Taiwan
Jiann-Her Lin, Chih-Cheng Chen, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Chih-Cheng Chen, Taiwan Mouse Clinic, National Comprehensive Mouse Phenotyping and Drug Testing Center, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan
Author contributions: Lin JH and Chen CC designed the theme of the editorial and wrote the manuscript.
Supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, No. MOST107-2321-B-001-020, No. MOST107-2314-B-038-041-MY3, and No. MOST107-2319-B-001-002.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All authors have nothing to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Chih-Cheng Chen, PhD, Professor, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Academia Sinica, No. 128, Section 2, Academia Road, Taipei, Taiwan, chih@ibms.sinica.edu.tw
Telephone: +886-2-26523917 Fax: +886-2-27829224
Received: July 3, 2018
Peer-review started: July 3, 2018
First decision: August 9, 2018
Revised: August 23, 2018
Accepted: October 12, 2018
Article in press: October 13, 2018
Published online: October 27, 2018
Processing time: 114 Days and 19.3 Hours
Abstract

Lumbar radiculopathy (LR) is a term used to describe a pain syndrome caused by compression or irritation of nerve roots in the lower back. The surgery cost for LR increased by 23% annually during 1992-2003 in the developed country. Although it is one of most common complaints in clinical practice, the diagnosis for LR is still very challenging. Here we discuss the current tools of LR diagnosis and highlight the needs to develop new diagnosis tools for LR.

Keywords: Magnetic resonance imaging; Nerve root; Pain; Lumbar radiculopathy; Lateral stenosis

Core tip: Lumbar radiculopathy (LR) is a pain syndrome caused by the compression or irritation of nerve roots in the lower back. Because the diagnosis of LR remains challenging, the development of new diagnostic tools is urged.