You say arthrosis, I say arthritis. Scan reports are full of words that sound alarming to anyone not medically trained, and people often read them as a verdict on their joint. Most of these phrases are describing ordinary age-related change. Here is what the common ones actually mean.
One thing to keep in mind throughout: these findings are extremely common in people with no pain at all. A report describes what the radiologist can see, not how you feel.
Arthrosis
The same thing as osteoarthritis. The report is using the other name for it.
It means the cartilage between the bones has thinned, which can bring pain, stiffness and reduced movement in that joint. Age, genetics, weight, overuse and previous injuries all raise the risk. Knees, hips, hands and spine are the usual sites.
Finding arthrosis on a scan at 55 is closer to finding grey hair than to finding a fracture. It is a description of age-related change, not a catastrophe.
Osteophytes
Also called bone spurs. These are small bony outgrowths that form at the edges of a joint where the cartilage has worn.
The body is not malfunctioning. It is trying to increase the joint’s surface area so pressure spreads over a wider region rather than concentrating on one worn patch. Most of the time they cause nothing at all and you would never know they were there.
Occasionally they do matter. A spur on a small spinal facet joint can narrow the space a nerve passes through. One at the big toe can be genuinely painful. Those are the exceptions, and they are worth treating specifically. Otherwise, treat a spur as a signal rather than a sentence.
Cortical thickening
The cortex is the dense outer shell of a bone. Thickening means that shell has got slightly denser.
This happens in response to load. Bone remodels where it is being asked to work harder, which is the same reason a tennis player’s racquet arm is denser. It is often noted alongside osteoarthritis and osteoporosis because both involve the bone remodelling itself.
On its own it is not a problem. It is usually just the bone having adapted.
Exit foraminal narrowing
The foramen is the gap a nerve passes through as it leaves the spine. Narrowing means that gap has tightened, usually because of the same degenerative changes happening to the discs and joints around it.
This one deserves more attention than the others, because a narrowed foramen can press on a nerve and produce pain, numbness, tingling or weakness in the area that nerve supplies. It is the most likely finding on this list to be connected to symptoms you are actually feeling.
It is also the most treatable. If it is producing symptoms, physiotherapy aimed at easing the pressure and improving how you move usually helps, and our lower back pain page covers how we approach it.
Bony oedema
Oedema means fluid. This is fluid inside the bone marrow itself, and it shows up on scans that are sensitive to it, usually an MRI.
It is a sign the bone is under some kind of stress — overload, inflammation, or in some cases a stress reaction. It is often sore at the time. It usually settles once the load coming through that area is reduced and given time, which is why it tends to appear alongside flare-ups rather than sitting quietly for years.
It is a marker of current irritation rather than permanent damage.
What to do with your report
The useful question is never “what does it say”. It is “does this explain what I am feeling”.
Plenty of people have all of the above and no symptoms. Plenty have significant pain with a fairly bland report. The scan and your symptoms are two separate pieces of information, and the one that matters for treatment is how the joint actually behaves.
So do ask someone to sit down and go through it with you. Your GP or your physio can usually do this in a few minutes. It is your joint they have been peering at, and you are entitled to understand what they saw.
If arthritis is what is behind your report, is osteoarthritis just part of getting older? is the place to start, and osteoarthritis and Pilates covers what to do about it.
