RESULTS The results of this review confirm and help quantify the significant differences that existed in the terminology and all the areas of diagnosis and treatment of presumed discogenic pain .
Our findings show that suspected discogenic pain , despite its extensive affirmation in the literature and enormous re sources regularly devoted to it , currently lacks clear diagnostic criteria and uniform treatment or terminology
BACKGROUND CONTEXT Pain innate to intervertebral disc , often referred to as discogenic pain , is suspected by some authors to be the major source of chronic low back and neck pain .
Current management of suspected discogenic pain lacks st and ardized diagnosis , treatment , and terminology .
PURPOSE In an attempt to determine whether patterns existed that may facilitate st and ardization of care , we sought to analyze the terminologies used and the various modes of diagnosis and treatment of suspected discogenic pain .
Intradiscal Thermal Annuloplasty for the Treatment of Lumbar Discogenic Pain in Patients with Multilevel Degenerative Disc Disease
Symptomatic degenerative disc disease ( DDD ) may lead to significant deterioration of quality of life and increased disability .  Intradiscal thermal annuloplasty ( IDTA ) is a minimally invasive treatment for painful DDD . We hypothesized that there may be an improvement in pain scores and the pain disability index ( PDI ) of patients who have multilevel DDD after IDTA . Patients 24–66 yr old , male and female with multilevel DDD ( MDDD ) and matched 1 or 2 level DDD ( 1,2-DDD ) patients were enrolled in the study . Visual analog pain scale ( VAS ) score and PDI were observed for 12 mo . The 1,2-DDD patient group had a 2.5 ± 2.4 VAS score at 12 mo after annuloplasty compared to 7.7 ± 2 before the procedure . The MDDD VAS score was 4.9 ± 2.9 at 12 mo compared to 7.4 ±1.8 before the procedure . Similar improvements in PDI were found . The pain relief and PDI were significantly better in patients with 1,2-DDD than in the MDDD group ( P = 0.0037 and P = 0.041 , respectively ) . We concluded that IDTA is an effective treatment of discogenic pain and that the number of discs affected by degeneration is an important determinant of the procedure outcome
RESULTS The results of this review confirm and help quantify the significant differences that existed in the terminology and all the areas of diagnosis and treatment of presumed discogenic pain .
Our findings show that suspected discogenic pain , despite its extensive affirmation in the literature and enormous re sources regularly devoted to it , currently lacks clear diagnostic criteria and uniform treatment or terminology
BACKGROUND CONTEXT Pain innate to intervertebral disc , often referred to as discogenic pain , is suspected by some authors to be the major source of chronic low back and neck pain .
Current management of suspected discogenic pain lacks st and ardized diagnosis , treatment , and terminology .
PURPOSE In an attempt to determine whether patterns existed that may facilitate st and ardization of care , we sought to analyze the terminologies used and the various modes of diagnosis and treatment of suspected discogenic pain .