Should a Lumbar MRI for back pain routinely include the sacro-iliac joint?
We conclude that routinely imaging the SIJ in MRI lumbar spine series is not cost-effective or a useful use of resources. The SIJ should be imaged only if significant clinical findings are demonstrated.
Whilst accepting that the numbers are small, there was no statistical difference in outcome (DFS and OS) between patients receiving pre- or post-operative chemo-radiotherapy. In most MRC patients, tumor regression is not significant after nCXRT and there is considerable possibility of tumor progression during nCXRT treatment. So, nCXRT should be used with close follow-up in MRC for early detection of possible tumor progression. If the patient cannot tolerate nCXRT, it is possibly safe to do surgery followed by pCXRT. Prospective study is needed to study the value of nCXRT in MRC.