MRI findings of acute whiplash injury and relationship to clinical symptoms

This study was designed to evaluate the relationship between findings of disc degeneration on magnetic resonance imaging and clinical symptoms in 415 patients with acute whiplash injury. The images were examined for signs of disc degeneration and spinal cord compression. Loss of disc signal intensity occurred significantly more often in patients with shoulder stiffness and numbness in the upper extremities, while the frequency of posterior disc protrusion was significantly higher in patients with shoulder stiffness than in patients without these symptoms. There was no significant relationship between other MRI findings and the presence or absence of clinical symptoms. These findings suggest that disc degeneration has no pathogenic implications in many patients with acute whiplash injury.