Chronic low back pain is a significant public health issue. Both its direct and indirect cost represents tens of billions of dollars. Although chronic low back pain can be the result of many factors, the predominant cause is disc degeneration. Recent studies have shown genetic involvement in up to 74% of cases. This study aimed to evaluate genetic risk factors of disc degeneration by performing a systematic analysis of association studies. The objective is to provide a guide for practice by assessing the clinical relevance of current information.

We performed a meta-analysis of 3122 items collected from 6 databases. Seventy-four articles were selected according to our inclusion criteria. Eighteen (24%) could be grouped into 16 meta-analyses of 16 mutations in 12 genes. The statistics of the meta-analysis were conducted through Revman 5.1 software.

The items included are 10,250 cases and 14,136 controls. The Gold range from 3.42 to 0.38. Two alleles were significantly associated with disc degeneration (IL-6 rs1800797 and MMP-9 rs17576) and one proved to be protective (IL-6 rs1800795). Thirteen meta-analyses did not yield significant results and methodological heterogeneity.

The results highlight the lack of methodological rigor in most of the studies. The absence of international clinical and radiological classification of early disc degeneration limits the homogeneity of studies. Understanding which populations are predisposed to this significant public health problem may change our approach to diagnostic and therapeutic methods. This work opens up enormous opportunities to provide a genetic solution and consider new diagnostic and therapeutic means to this public health problem.