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Understanding Your MRI Report | Dr. Kris Radcliff
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Understanding Your MRI Report

MRI reports are written for doctors, and the wording can sound alarming. Here is what the most common terms mean. What matters most is whether the findings match your symptoms and your exam. Dr. Radcliff reviews the images themselves, not just the report.

Common Terms

  • Disc degeneration or desiccation: the disc has lost some of its water and height. This is part of normal aging and is common in people with no pain at all.
  • Disc bulge: the disc extends a little beyond the edges of the bones, usually evenly all around.
  • Disc protrusion or herniation: a focal piece of disc pushes out further in one spot. It matters when it presses on a nerve on the same side and at the same level as your symptoms.
  • Extrusion or sequestration: a larger herniation, sometimes with a free fragment.
  • Annular fissure or tear: a crack in the outer ring of the disc. It can be a source of back pain or simply an incidental finding.
  • Spinal stenosis: narrowing of the central canal where the spinal cord or nerves run.
  • Foraminal narrowing: narrowing of the side openings where individual nerves leave the spine. Mild, moderate and severe describe how tight it is.
  • Facet arthropathy or hypertrophy: arthritis and enlargement of the small joints at the back of the spine.
  • Spondylolisthesis: one vertebra has slipped forward on the one below it.
  • Cord compression or myelomalacia: pressure on the spinal cord, or a change in the cord itself from pressure. These findings need prompt attention from a spine specialist.

Why the Report Is Only Part of the Picture

Many people without any pain have bulging or degenerated discs on MRI. A finding on the right side does not explain pain on the left, and a finding at one level does not explain symptoms that come from another. The right treatment depends on matching the MRI to your history, your exam, and sometimes to nerve testing or a diagnostic injection.

Signs That Need Prompt Attention

  • Weakness that is getting worse, such as a foot that drags or trouble gripping.
  • Clumsy hands, trouble with buttons or handwriting, or a change in balance.
  • Loss of bladder or bowel control, or numbness in the groin or inner thighs. This is an emergency.

Bring Your Images

For a consultation or second opinion, bring the MRI disc and the report, any X-rays, and prior surgeons’ notes if you have them. We will go over the images with you.

Questions?

Offices in Somers Point, Cherry Hill, and Brick, New Jersey, as part of Progressive Spine & Orthopaedics.
New patients: 609-800-3472
Existing patients: 609-800-3472

This page is general information, not medical advice. Your treatment should be based on an evaluation by your own physician.