02/03/2019
OSTEOPHYTES ARE DEGENERATIVE OR ADAPTIVE???
Videman and collegues(1995) and Niemelainen and collegues(2008) documented that vertebral osteophytes were most highly associated with end-plate damage and disc injury.Michael Adam's group (Al-Rawahi et al.,2011) assessed whether these are degenerative or adaptive.Removing the osteophytes from the vertebra reduced the ability to withstand bending loads up to one-half.they concluded that osteophytes are an adaption to joint instability which stimulates their formation.Further,the presence of osteophytes increased measures of bone mineral density(BMD),but such measures may actually underestimate vertebral compressive strength.