Lumbar stenosis.

Abstract

Lumbar stenosis continues to be inadequately appreciated as a major cause of sciatica, neurogenic claudication, and cauda equina syndrome. Review of the nineteenth-century medical literature reveals articles on narrow canal syndrome in achondroplastic dwarfs; connection to the clinical presentation of developmental spinal stenosis awaited the middle decades of the twentieth century. Appropriate neurosurgical intervention has evolved with a better understanding of the pathophysiologic changes that take place with this disorder and the introduction of myelography, computerized tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging.