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Andersson lesion

Radswiki and Dr Saleh Saleh et al.

An Andersson lesion refers to inflammatory involvement of the intervertebral discs by spondyloarthritis

Epidemiology

Rheumatic spondylodiskitis is a noninfectious condition that occurs in about 8% of patients with ankylosing spondylitis as detected at radiography

Radiographic features

Plain film

Radiography depicts irregularities and erosions of the vertebral endplates that are not related to the anterior or posterior edge but rather to the central portion, such findings are now known to be late features of spondyloarthritis.

MRI

At MR imaging, these lesions are depicted as disk-related signal-intensity abnormalities of one or both vertebral halves of a discovertebral unit; they appear hyperintense on STIR images and hypointense on T1-weighted images, where they are often hemispherically shaped. Lines of increased signal intensity may be seen at the interface between the anulus fibrosus and nucleus pulposus or within the latter in early disease. Just as MR imaging is better than conventional radiography in its depiction of anterior spondylitis (or Romanus lesions), MR imaging also provides a superior view of spondylodiskitis, since the edematous changes in early disease are not radiographically visualised.

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