Radiopaedia Blog: Degenerative disease

8th Oct 2016 14:44 UTC

Disk Osteophyte Complex

I have recently submitted an editorial to the AJNR on my opinion that we should not be using disk-osteophyte-complex (DOC) term because it is a cop-out in not using the gradient echo T2W image to distinguish disk from osteophyte (disk bright, osteophyte dark). My surgeons say knowing whether the cervical disease is a disk versus an osteophyte is very important to them (diskectomy for disk versus posterior decompression for big osteophyte etc). Can I hear from other voices as to why DOC has become a default term for all DJD pathology in the cervical spine?

 

David M. Yousem is Director of Neuroradiology and a Professor of Radiology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital School of Medicine 

Twitter: @dyousem1

NB: Opinions expressed are those of the author alone, and are not those of his employer nor of Radiopaedia.org. 

 

Blog Subscription

We will only send you an email when there are new posts.

Updating… Please wait.

 Unable to process the form. Check for errors and try again.

 Thank you for updating your details.