Low back pain in adolescents: Professor Stanley Herring talks spondylolysis

BMJ talk medicine

Professor Stanley Herring is a clinical professor at the University of Washington (UW) in the Departments of Rehabilitation Medicine, Orthopaedics and Sports Medicine, and Neurological Surgery. He is director of the UW Medicine Sports Health & Safety Institute, medical director of Sports, Spine and Orthopedic Health for UW Medicine, and co-medical director of the Sports Concussion Program, a partnership between UW Medicine and Seattle Children's. Dr. Herring's clinical interests include non-operative musculoskeletal and sports medicine with a particular interest in disorders of the spine and sports concussion. He is a team physician for the Seattle Mariners and a consultant to the UW Sports Medicine Program. In this podcast he talks to BJSM’s Liam West about an important cause of low back pain in our adolescent sporting population – spondylolysis. They discuss common presentations, examination techniques, imaging protocols and clinical pearls for treatment. References Use of the one-legged hyperextension test and magnetic resonance imaging in the diagnosis of active spondylolysis - http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/40/11/940.info Nonoperative treatment of active spondylolysis in elite athletes with normal X-ray findings: literature review and results of conservative treatment - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11806390 Union of defects in the pars interarticularis of the lumbar spine in children and adolescents - http://bjj.boneandjoint.org.uk/content/86-B/2/225 Nonoperative treatment in lumbar spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis: a systematic review - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24427393/