patient recent MRI says DEGENRATIVE CHANGES IN LUMBAR SPINE WITH ANTERIOR WEDGING OF 12 VERTEBRAL BODY.whts tht mean?will the patient survive,patient age is 31,n mal.

Siddhartha Bhatia:
I think we're a little short on information here, at least with regard to lymphoma, but I think I can address what this is saying about the spine of the patient, to some degree.

To begin, the "body" of a vertebra merely refers to the largest part of a single vertebra (image from Wikipedia):

The human spine has five regions of 33 total vertebrae (number of vertebra in each region in paranthesis):
Cervical (7)- in your neck
Thoracic (12) - in the middle of your back
Lumbar (5) - your lower back
Sacral (5) & Coccygeal (4) - below your waist and to your tail bone.

You shouldn't be too alarmed by the term "degenerative" in terms of the lumbar spine, because by age 31, all of our bodies have begun to degenerate- everywhere. In fact they started doing that long before age 31. Doesn't mean you're unhealthy. That's just life.

As for 'Anterior wedging' I can only guess that this refers to the area in which the degeneration is most obvious. In human anatomy, the terms "posterior" and "anterior" are very confusing.

When you read "anterior" with regard to the spine, this refers to the person's front. "Posterior" refers to their back. Thus, there could be some 'wedging' or some herniation of the spongy material between the discs that's occurring around the anterior - or front - of vertebral body. You can read more about this at SpineUniverse's article on Degenerative Disc Disease.

Beyond this, it's hard to say what this diagnosis is referring to and how it might be affected by other factors.

Can you provide more information?

Thanks,
Ross