Pressure standardized lumbar discography.

The basic procedure for carrying out clinical lumbar discography has been examined. As a consequence, a pressure-standardized injection technique has been established. It is shown that monitoring the flow of contrast medium into the disc can, in the case of a true nuclear injection, improve the diagnostic efficiency. Additionally, knowledge of this flow can help to avoid a commonly occurring, but not often recognized, artefact described in detail elsewhere (Quinnell and Stockdale, 1980).