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Completed Not applicable Interventional

Lumbar Spine Muscle Degeneration Inhibits Rehabilitation-Induced Muscle Recovery

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT03442374

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03442374. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 2, 2026, 4:46 PM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Official title

Lumbar Spine Muscle Degeneration Inhibits Rehabilitation-Induced Muscle

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

Low back pain (LBP) is a complex condition that affects 65-85% of the population, and is the leading musculoskeletal condition contributing to disability in the United States. Disc herniation is the most common injury and 75% of individuals undergoing surgical and rehabilitative interventions for this condition experience suboptimal or poor outcomes. These patients demonstrate disability and deficits in functional capacity, including strength and endurance of the lumbar musculature. Muscle-specific changes in individuals with LBP include altered muscle volume, fatty infiltration and fibrosis, and fiber area and type. Importantly, these changes are insensitive to rehabilitation in patients with continued chronic or recurrent symptoms. While normal disuse-related atrophy in the presence of LBP is expected, more severe or chronic pathology, such as inflammation and fiber damage, may be inducing irreversible fiber degeneration and fatty/fibrotic tissue changes that impair muscle function and recovery. While the structural and adaptive capacities of healthy muscle are well understood, muscle recovery in the presence of pathology is less clear. To address this gap in knowledge, the purpose of this project is to compare structural, physiological, and adaptive responses of muscle in the presence of acute and chronic lumbar spine pathology. The central hypothesis is that chronic injury results in a state of muscle inflammation, atrophy, fibrosis, and muscle degeneration that is not responsive to exercise. The Investigators will identify which patients respond to exercise by examining muscle hypertrophic, fibrotic, inflammatory, and adipogenic gene expression profiles. Patients will be followed for six months post-operatively to measure muscle recovery and strength.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT03442374
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Not applicable
Enrollment
62 participants

Conditions and interventions

Interventions

Other

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
21 Years to 85 Years
Sex
All
Healthy volunteers
Healthy volunteers not accepted

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Jun 30, 2019
Primary completion
May 31, 2023
Completion
Sep 30, 2023
Last update posted
Nov 27, 2023

2019 – 2023

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
UC San Diego La Jolla California 92093

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT03442374, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Nov 27, 2023 · Synced Sep 2, 2026

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Open the official record

The complete protocol, eligibility criteria, and contact information for NCT03442374 live on ClinicalTrials.gov.

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