Phys Med Rehabil Clin N Am 21 (2010) 725766
"Czervionke and Fenton83 recently reported a series of patients undergoing MRI studies for back pain, and noted that fat-saturated T2-weighted images could detect z-joint synovitis that appeared to corre-late with the clinical pain syndrome.
STIR or fat-saturated T2-weighted sequences should be included in the MRI examination in the patient with back pain"
http://www.ajronline.org/content/191/4/973.full
The results of our study suggest that, with high probability, degenerative changes in the posterior paraspinal soft-tissue structures, especially interspinous ligament edema, fac-et joint effusion, neocyst formation, and intrinsic spinal muscle edema, cause LBP in some patients. Because of homogeneous fat suppression and better depiction of soft-tissue edema,
the STIR sequence is the best imaging technique for visualizing the afore-mentioned changes, and it adds only 2 min-utes to the imaging examination. Therefore,
we suggest that for patients with LBP without other obvious pathologic findings, the STIR sequence be added to the MRI evaluation to visualize degenerative changes in posterior spinal structures as a possible cause of pain.
Am I way off base here?