An archaic term

doi:10.1136/bmj.39275.951343.BE

BMJ 2007;335:112 (21 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39275.951343.BE

Letters

Sciatica

An archaic term

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

In their clinical review Koes et al use the entirely non-evidence-basedterm "sciatica."¹ From the Greek, it literally means hip pain.In English, the Oxford English Dictionary gives precedent toa quote from Shakespeare's Timon of Athens (act IV, scene I),where sciatica is a curse placed on the senators. None of thisis a good basis for current usage, which is supposed to describenerve root or radicular pain, as the authors note but do notdiscuss.

The problem is that patients with back pain may also have referredpain, a phenomenon first pointed out by Kellgren over 60 yearsago.² Clinicians are not good at making this distinction, butthey should at least try. This issue takes on greater importancewhen studying the evidence base where often this distinctionis not made. Persistent use of the archaic word sciatica inthe clinical setting is not in the best . . . [Full text of this article]

Jeremy C T Fairbank, consultant orthopaedic surgeon

Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford OX3 7LD

jeremy.fairbank@ndos.ox.ac.uk