Background: All though the most common etiology of lumbar radiculopathy is herniated disc or spinal stenosis, however there are several intraspinal or extra spinal pathogenic processes that may cause lumbar radiculopathy.
Objective: To assess how often, and review the pathologies that cause non discogenic lumbar radiculopathy.
Patients and Methods: A prospective study was conducted on 600 patients who had lumbar radiculopathy. During one year period we examined 600 patients in outpatient clinic with presumed diagnosis of lumbar disc herniation.Through history and comprehensive physical and neurological examination were performed for all patients. Diagnostic test were done including laboratory, electrophysiological and radiological assessments. in this study Patients with non discogenic lumbar radiculopathy, were refereed patients to other specialist to deal with cases.
Results: There were 104 patients (17%) with non discogenic lumbar radiculopathy out of 600 patients presented with lumbar radiculopathy. There were peripheral neuropathy in 28.8%, peripheral vascular diseases in 19.25%, osteoarthritis or osteonecrosis of hip joint in 19.25%, extra spinal tumors in 14.5% of patients ,osteodiscitis in 11.5%, entrapment neuropathy in 6.5% of the patients.
Conclusions:The most common causes of lumbar radiculopathy are herniated disc but there are 17% with non discogenic lumbar radiculopathy with broad list of pathologies.
