MRI findings in the lumbar spines of asymptomatic, adolescent, elite tennis players.

I ran across this study on asymptomatic elite tennis players with an average age of 17 years old. The study scanned 33 teenagers and only 5 had normal scans! The scans revealed multiple abnormalities in the rest including disc degeneration, joint arthritis, disc bulges, and stress fractures.
Partly due to studies like this and current imaging guidelines, I now order much less imaging than in the past. Unfortunately many doctors rely too heavily on imaging studies. MRI findings in the lumbar spines of asymptomatic, adolescent, elite tennis players.

The problem with MRIs for low back pain

It seems to make sense that more medical testing gives better results, yet studies have shown that imaging for low back pain does not improve one’s pain, function, or quality of life. One of the big negatives with imaging is that there is a high amount of false negatives, which are incidental findings that do not cause symptoms, and this many times leads to unneeded further testing and failed treatments including surgeries.
So it is counter-intuitive but sometimes less testing is better.
The problem with MRIs for low back pain