AGEING AND DEGENERATIVE CHANGE: OSTEOPHYTOSIS
This is not a degenerative condition in its own right but may be a secondary manifestation to a degenerative disease. Osteophytosis is part of the healing of a fracture. It is the formation of osteophytes, bony growths or spurs, on bone, or fibrous tissue attached to bone. They are deposits of calcium, the material of bone; in the spine they form all round the edges of the flat sides of the vertebral bodies, and on the facet joints.
Osteophytosis is in fact a feature of osteoarthrosis (also called osteoarthritis), a degenerative disease of the joints, causing a thickening of the bone. (It should not be confused with rheumatoid arthritis, which is a very different and more distressing complaint.)
Although on X-ray osteophytes can look formidably hooklike, they usually cause trouble only if they happen to grow out into the chinks through which the nerve roots pass, or into the spinal canal itself: if nerve tissue is compressed, this can be very painful. Such problems are most likely to arise in the lumbar region, where the cauda equina, with its bundle of nerves, emerges from the dural tube.
Osteophytes can cause back trouble in people who have by nature a very narrow spinal canal. Where the spinal canal is trefoil shaped (rather than roughly round) the growth of osteophytes further reduces the space through which the nerve roots pass, and the person is likely to suffer from back problems.
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