Many patients with low back pain ask for a CT examination to see if there is a lumbar disc herniation when they see a doctor. Indeed, a CT examination of a typical patient with lumbar disc herniation can clarify the diagnosis and the location and degree of herniation, and help to choose a suitable treatment. However, there are many kinds of spinal diseases that cause low back pain, not only one kind of lumbar disc herniation, and imaging examinations such as X-ray, CT and MRI each have their own strengths and clinical significance, and all have their own certain indications, which should be chosen reasonably according to the condition. Conventional X-ray film can directly observe the bony structure of the lumbar spine and can determine fractures, slippage, tuberculosis, tumors, scoliosis and other lesions. However, changes in the spinal cord, intervertebral discs and other soft tissues can only be inferred through secondary bony changes; CT can clearly display the morphology and size of bony structures such as the spinal canal, and to a certain extent, it can also observe changes in the spinal cord, intervertebral discs and other non-bony structures, and determine whether there are occupying lesions in the spinal canal and their scope and nature, and is most commonly used to determine lumbar disc herniation, lumbar spinal stenosis, fractures, tumors, etc.; MRI has no MRI has no ionizing radiation, can display multi-segmental lesions in sagittal, cross-sectional and coronal planes, has high resolution of soft tissues, and is most commonly used to determine lumbar disc herniation, spinal cord tumors, inflammation, etc. However, the resolution of bony structures is poor, so it is not easy to observe hypertrophy of small joints and changes in the lateral saphenous fossa. The imaging results are only an objective description of the disease, and it is difficult to determine the type and nature of the disease based on imaging alone. Doctors often need to take a detailed medical history and conduct a careful and thoughtful physical examination, then conduct a comprehensive analysis and refer to the imaging results in order to make the correct diagnosis and treatment plan. In particular, it should be noted that X-ray, CT and MRI imaging examinations may have positive changes in people without low back pain, and positive findings in people with low back pain may not always have clinical significance. For example, some people have lumbar disc herniation on CT and MRI imaging, but do not have clinical manifestations of lumbar disc herniation such as back and leg pain, so we can only say that they have pathological manifestations of lumbar disc herniation rather than having lumbar disc herniation, and in cases where lumbar disc herniation is diagnosed, the results of the review of most patients who were cured by non-surgery show that the herniated material has not been returned. In addition, what we often call lumbar spine osteophytes are essentially the result of lumbar disc degeneration, lumbar segmental instability and organism compensation, which includes vertebral body edge hyperplasia and small joint hyperplasia, and many older people without a history of back pain have lumbar spine X-rays suggesting osteophytes, and hyperplasia is only called “disease” when it provokes or compresses the corresponding tissues, such as nerve roots and spinal cord, and produces clinical symptoms. “The most common cases are “lumbar spinal stenosis” and so on, therefore, the imaging results can be referred to but not relied upon.