The main symptoms of lumbar disc herniation are low back pain and lower extremity radiation pain, so if similar symptoms appear, it must be caused by lumbar disc herniation? Not really! There are many other diseases that can also cause such low back and leg pain, among which spinal canal tumors need to attract attention.
Many patients with low back leg pain have been treated as lumbar disc herniation, the result is not cured for a long time, and finally found out that it is a lumbar spinal canal tumor, but often the best treatment time has been missed, which is a pity. So what's the difference between these two diseases? Today, follow Li Weixin, director of the Spine Group of the Department of Neurosurgery of Tangdu Hospital of the Air Force Military Medical University, to understand.
Why can spinal canal tumors and lumbar disc herniation cause low back and leg pain?
Spinal canal tumors are generally benign, and they grow in the spinal cord itself and the tissue structure adjacent to the spinal cord in the spinal canal. So where is the spinal canal? The spine is an approximate column structure made of segments of vertebrae, most of which have a small hole in the back of the vertebral body, which together are connected into a pipe, which is our spinal canal. There are very important spinal cords and nerves walking in the spinal canal, and this place has tumors, which is still very harmful to us.
When the lumbar segment of the spinal canal tumor, early if the growth is relieved, many patients will have low back pain or no obvious symptoms, but when the tumor grows to a certain extent, compression to the nerve will appear compressive symptoms, the most common is nerve root pain, patients often manifest as lower back pain aggravation and lower limb radiation pain, pain intensified when lying still, later perineal numbness, constipation, lower limb muscle decline, muscle atrophy and so on.
Lumbar disc herniation occurs because the lumbar nerve is compressed or stimulated by the herniated disc, and the symptoms of nerve compression occur.
How to distinguish between spinal canal tumors and lumbar disc herniation?
Although the symptoms are similar, there are still differences.
When patients with spinal canal tumors cough, hold their breath, and exert force on the stool, the pressure in the spinal canal will increase, which can lead to a significant increase in the symptoms of nerve root compression. Moreover, such nerve root pain is characterized by burning pain, tingling, prickly pain, etc. Most patients experience nocturnal pain, lying pain, and the pain is paroxysmal and ranges from seconds to minutes.
Pain in patients with lumbar disc herniation is persistent, mostly radiation pain in the unilateral lower extremities, and many patients are accompanied by numbness in the lower extremities. Such patients are relieved by lying flat and resting, and are aggravated by exertion and bending over.
Of course, the best way to identify these two diseases is to recommend that you go to a regular hospital for lumbar nuclear resonance imaging, which is the "gold standard" for diagnosing spinal canal tumors.
Once a spinal canal tumor is found, it is recommended to surgically remove it as soon as possible!
Most patients with lumbar disc herniation can achieve good results with conservative treatment, and only a small number of patients need to consider surgery. However, the treatment of spinal canal tumors and lumbar disc herniation is not the same, and surgery is carried out as soon as possible once it is found.
Although spinal canal tumors are mostly benign, they need to be treated as soon as possible. This is because the conservative treatment effect of spinal canal tumors is not obvious, and as the tumor continues to grow, if it compresses the spinal cord or nerve roots for a long time, there will be irreversible spinal nerve damage, and even if you do surgery again, it will not help, and even lead to paralysis of the lower limbs. In addition, early surgery when the tumor is small, the operation is relatively simple, the risk is relatively low, the trauma to the patient is smaller, and the postoperative function recovery is also fast.
Therefore, if you have unprovoked low back and leg pain, you must go to the neurosurgery department of a regular hospital for examination, and after determining the cause, you will undergo formal treatment. If it is a spinal canal tumor, be sure to intervene as early as possible and do not miss the best time.