Any back/spine/radiology type experts on here tonight????

[VeniVidiVickiQV]

Had a lumbar x-ray done which has come back as "normal".
But I KNOW I have an unusual sacro-iliac malformation.

I've quizzed my GP and he couldnt give a definitive answer, except to say that they were looking for arthritis-type indications and there are none.

I'm not convinced by any of this. Does this sound right?

.

Whats up with your si joint then?

The right side is split into three parts.

Well in that case what your GP said sounds right. An xray request is effectively in the form of a symptom (or other clinical details) and a question eg "lower back pain, ?arthritis". If your si joint thing would not cause that type of back pain and is not a type of arthritis the report would not comment on it since it would not be relevant.

There are lots of anatomical variants around and the convention is not to comment on them unless relevant. Hence it is often said "a report is only as good as the clinical details".

This is esp true when the reporting doc does not know the requesting doc personally, and does not know whether he/she might wrongly tell the patient that there is something wrong with them or that the cause of their symptoms has been found. This may have been a factor in your case.

but surely, if there is a history of complications in the lumber region - sending off a basic request isnt adequate in the first place?

Who assesses the x-rays to say whether there is a problem - the radiologists?

Yeah its the radiologist who does the reporting. They usually keep the films at the hosp and can look at them again if the requester has any further questions. As for the request youd have to ask your gp what he put on the clinical details section of the form!

was the x-ray definitely just lumbar? The sacro-iliac joint is lower down and may not be on the picture.

if they want to see the sacrum as well, they usually ask for "lumbo-sacral spine", and often a separate x-ray of the sacrum is taken.

Ah I see. I thought they had included the sacral area - but clearly not. If not, my GP is a fuckwit, because I explicitly mentioned where the pain was.

Thank you all .

I've still got my x-rays from UCL a few years back so I might ask the hospital for my recent x-rays and see what's what.