The Relationship Of TNF-α And Nucleus Pulposus' Apoptosis In Lumbar Herniated Intervertebral Disc

Objective: Nucleus pulposus'apoptosis play an important role in intervertebral disc's aging and degeneration, then cause the pain in patients'back and leg. Recent years many research have show that TNF-αis one of the very important cytokines of lumbar herniated intervertebral disc, which can cause obvious symptom among the patients. But there are not any reports which shows that TNF-αcan cause nucleus pulposus'apoptosis in lumbar intervertebral disc, but there are some reports of this kind show that TNF-αcan cause apoptosis in the other studies except Orthopaedics. What we do in the study is to investigate initially the relationship of TNF-αand nucleus pulposus'apoptosis in lumbar herniated intervertebral disc.Method: Choose 24 L4/5 bulged-type lumbar intervertebral disc hernia cases, male 13, female 11, average age 42.6 (25-56). All the nucleus pulposus tissues are taken out during the operation and are dyed using routine immunohistochemical methods. Confirm the positive signal of the nucleus pulposus'cells. Examine the expression of TNF-α,Bax and Bcl-2, and Bcl-2/Bax in nucleus pulposus cells. Use medical image system dealing with field of slices'vision, then analysis the result statistically.Results: The relationship of TNF-αand Bax is positive correlation, the relationship of TNF-αand Bcl-2 is negative correlation, the relationship of TNF-αand Bcl-2/Bax is negative correlation. There is no difference of TNF-α,Bax,Bcl-2 and Bcl-2/Bax between male group and female group statistically, neither is there difference of TNF-α,Bax,Bcl-2 and Bcl-2/Bax among all the age groups statistically. Conclusion: TNF-αis likely the very important cytokine which hasten nucleus pulposus'apoptosis. TNF-αcan tone up the expression of Bax, and tone down the expression of Bcl-2, then decrease the value of Bcl-2 /Bax, which is the'on-off'of the apoptosis; Hence accelerate the apoptosis of the nucleus pulposus and deteriorate the disease of lumbar herniated intervertebral disc. But gender and age are not likely the independent risk factors of the apoptosis of the nucleus pulposus.