PARTICIPANTS Primary care patients aged over 18 years, with current LBP, access to the internet and without indicators of serious spinal pathology or systemic illness.
Recruiting a minimum of 60 patients with LBP, access to the internet and without indicators of serious spinal pathology from primary care within the allotted recruitment time period for the trial.
The feasibility of the trial and intervention will be assessed based on the following criteria: Recruiting a minimum of 60 patients with LBP, access to the internet and without indicators of serious spinal pathology from primary care within the allotted recruitment time period for the trial.
White blood cell count was elevated only in 10 (38.5%) of these patients and seemed to be a relatively poor indicator for spinal infection.
Standard measures of acute phase response (erythrocyte sedimentation rate/C-reactive protein (CRP)) are not generally felt to be reliable indicators of activity of spinal disease [ 3]: these measures correlate weakly with disease activity in AS, do not fully reflect the disease process, and their value in clinical trials is limited.
His spinal cord fluid showed the presence of oligoclonal bands, an indicator of increased immune activity in the spinal fluid. 2 The MRI of his brain documented the presence of demyelination, primarily in his frontal lobe.
Red flags are recognised as indicators of possible serious spinal pathology, and their use is indicated by numerous guidelines.
If patients report that they are experiencing LBP, report no indicators of potential serious spinal pathology or systemic illness, and are interested in participating, they are emailed a link to the trial website.
Exclusion: Patients will be excluded if: they are under 18 years of age; have clinical indicators of potentially serious spinal pathology or systemic illness; they have taken part in the study to develop the internet intervention is being trialled.
Although this link is not surprising because both CRP as an acute phase reactant and ASspiMRI-a score as an imaging marker of spinal inflammation can be considered as objective indicators of AS inflammation.
