Lumbar spine MRI is the study most radiologists report most often, and the one where habits matter most. Nearly every scan has findings. The skill is separating what explains the patient from what simply comes with being forty.
This is our complete lumbar spine MRI series: fifteen parts, free to watch, taking you from protocol through to a report structure. Start with the short overview below, then work through in order.
ABC of the lumbar spine
A one-minute orientation to the approach the series follows.
1. Indications, protocols and layout
What the referral is really asking, which sequences answer it, and how to lay the study out so you read it the same way every time.
2. Spasm and kyphosis
Loss of lordosis, segmental kyphosis, and the postural findings that are reported too confidently and too often.
3. Scoliosis and spondylolisthesis
Measuring and describing curvature, the pars defect, and grading a slip in a way that means something to the person treating it.
4. Developmental anomalies
Transitional vertebrae, the numbering problem they cause, and why getting the level wrong is the one error nobody forgives.
5. Fractures and pathological fractures
Acute against chronic, benign against malignant, and the marrow signal that separates them.
6. Osteophytes and Modic changes
Degenerative endplate change, the Modic types, and how much of it belongs in your conclusion.
7. The conus: space-occupying lesions
Where the conus should sit, and what to do when something is sitting with it.
8. The conus: fractures and cord contusion
Cord signal after trauma, and distinguishing contusion from compression.
9. Disc structure and spine labelling
Normal disc anatomy and a labelling convention you can defend.
10. Disc relations and incidence
What is normal for age, and the asymptomatic findings that fill reports unnecessarily.
11. Disc prolapse nomenclature
Bulge, protrusion, extrusion, sequestration. The vocabulary surgeons expect, used correctly.
12. Discitis
The infection that gets called degenerative change for six weeks. Endplate destruction, disc signal, paravertebral extension.
13. Discitis and diffusion-weighted imaging
Where DWI helps, where it misleads, and the abscess you must not miss.
14. E for epidural
Epidural collections, their causes, and the urgency each one carries.
15. Review, checklist and report
Putting it together: a search pattern and a report structure you can use tomorrow.
Where to go next
The rest of our musculoskeletal MRI teaching follows the same format: shoulder, ankle and wrist.
For structured case practice with feedback and a CPD certificate, the Boston MSK MRI Review covers the full MSK curriculum, and our case review series includes bone and joint imaging.
Radicon Institute of Radiology has taught radiology since 2017, with over ninety filmed tutorials and delegates across the UK, the Gulf and South Asia.
