In clinical practice, when some patients take X-rays of the cervical or lumbar spine for various reasons, the radiology report sometimes says “cervical spinal stenosis” or “lumbar spinal stenosis”, what should the patient do in the face of such a radiology report? There are many causes of spinal stenosis. The most common cause is degenerative spinal stenosis of the cervical or lumbar spine, which is caused by degeneration and aging of the cervical or lumbar spine, followed by protrusion of the intervertebral disc into the spinal canal, formation of bone spurs at the posterior edge of the vertebral body, hypertrophy of the ligamentum flavum, hyperplasia of the synovial joint and other structures that make up the four walls of the spinal canal. Other less common causes are spinal stenosis due to tuberculosis, tumors, trauma, and congenital spinal stenosis due to congenital causes. Spinal stenosis can compress the spinal cord or nerve roots in the corresponding area, resulting in symptoms such as numbness, weakness, pain or even paralysis of the limbs and dysfunction of urination and defecation. Generally speaking, after the age of 25 to 30, the spinal discs and intervertebral joints of the human spine can begin to show signs of aging such as degeneration and hyperplasia. Although many people have cervical or lumbar spinal stenosis, the corresponding symptoms of compression of the spinal nerve roots do not appear until death, and even if symptoms appear, most people do not start to show the corresponding performance until after the age of 40 or 50. Therefore, when many middle-aged and elderly people undergo X-ray examinations of the cervical or lumbar spine due to physical examinations or simple neck, shoulder and back pain, they can find degenerative hyperplasia and spinal stenosis in the cervical or lumbar spine, but they do not have the symptoms of weakness, pain and even paralysis of the limbs that occur after the compression of the spinal nerve roots. When radiologists issue radiology reports based on their radiographic findings, they will faithfully write down the manifestations of cervical or lumbar degeneration and spinal stenosis. However, these imaging manifestations of cervical or lumbar degeneration and spinal stenosis have no clinical significance because they do not have corresponding clinical symptoms, so they do not need to be addressed by orthopedic surgeons and patients do not need to make a fuss. In addition, radiologists and clinical orthopedic surgeons, due to the different nature of their work, have different perceptions of the same problem. Radiologists are more concerned about the degenerative proliferation, aging, spinal stenosis and other structural changes in the human body seen on imaging, so radiologists have to describe these changes truthfully when they see them, while clinicians are more concerned about the relationship between these structural changes in the human body and clinical symptoms, that is, the clinical significance of these structural changes, and if the patient has the corresponding clinical symptoms, the clinician considers these imaging changes If the patient has corresponding clinical symptoms, the clinician considers these structural changes to be clinically significant, and if there are no corresponding clinical manifestations, these structural changes are not clinically significant and do not need to be addressed. At the same time, in a strict sense, radiology reports are not for patients, but for clinicians, providing help and reference for the clinicians’ correct diagnosis, treatment plan development and prognosis estimation, but not determining the clinicians’ diagnosis. Therefore, patients do not need to take certain words and phrases in the radiology report out of context and worry too much about them. In another case, the patient underwent surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis, and the original symptoms were significantly relieved or even disappeared after surgery. However, when the post-operative X-ray or CT or MRI is reviewed, sometimes the radiology report will say “spinal stenosis”, what is this? It turns out that lumbar spinal stenosis is divided into central canal stenosis and neurogenic stenosis, and central canal stenosis often does not show corresponding clinical symptoms, while neurogenic stenosis is easy to show corresponding clinical symptoms such as radiological pain and numbness in the lower limbs, and the clinical symptoms of the patient are often related to the instability of the lumbar spine. Therefore, when a patient with lumbar spinal stenosis undergoes surgery, the surgeon will remove the herniated disc, widen the narrowed nerve root canal, and in some cases, perform internal fixation, which can effectively relieve the patient’s clinical symptoms, while the central canal stenosis, which is not related to the symptoms, does not need to be treated. In this case, the central canal stenosis is still present on postoperative follow-up radiographs, so sometimes the radiologist may continue to write “lumbar spinal stenosis” on the report. Therefore, the patient should carefully consult the clinical orthopedic surgeon for his conclusive opinion and listen to the orthopedic surgeon’s interpretation of the radiologist’s report, rather than interpreting the words and phrases in the report, as this will only lead to annoyance.