Rare Case of Complete Fatty Degeneration of the Paraspinal Muscle in a Patient with Low Back Pain

The ethiopathogenesis of low back pain cannot always be demonstrated and sometimes clinicians cannot establish a relationship between clinical symptoms and radiological examinations. Clinicians tend to focus on vertebral body, intervertebral discs, and facet joints on imaging in low back pain. However, the paravertebral muscles that play an important role in lumbar spine stabilization should not be underestimated on imaging. The increase in the amount of fat deposited in the lumbar region and the reduction of muscle mass are macroscopic findings of muscle degeneration. In this case report, we present a patient with chronic low back pain who had been reported to have no pathological findings except 2 levels of bulging on previous imaging and who was then diagnosed as having complete fatty degeneration and atrophy of the paravertebral muscles after reevaluation of her imaging results