Do not routinely offer imaging for uncomplicated low back pain.

### What you need to know The past two decades have seen a paradigm shift in the way we use imaging when managing low back pain (LBP). Imaging was once a routine part of the diagnostic workup for most cases of LBP. Evidence now indicates that imaging is useful only in the small subgroup of patients for whom there is suspicion of red flag conditions. These conditions include cancer, infection, inflammatory disease, fracture, and severe neurological deficits—which together account for only 5-10% of LBP presentations in primary care.1 For the remaining 90-95% of LBP cases (called non-specific or uncomplicated LBP), imaging will not guide management and can cause more harm than benefit. International guidelines2 and “Choosing Wisely” campaigns now encourage a diagnostic triage approach to identify those patients who require imaging (box 1). Given these advances in knowledge, imaging rates for LBP should be decreasing, but recent systematic reviews show the opposite, reporting that imaging has increased over the past 20 years3 and that at least a third of all images are unnessary.4 Box 1 ### “Choosing Wisely” statements from different countries related to avoiding the use of routine imaging for low back painRETURN TO TEXT