Intervertebral disc (IVD) degeneration is a common orthopaedic disorder with significant social and economic impact. The major pathological changes occur in the structure of anulus fibrosus (AF) and nucleus pulposus (NP). According to previous reports differential sacnning calorimetric (DSC) proved to be a suitable method for the demonstration of thermal consequences of local and global conformational changes in the structure of the human intervertebral discs. According to the present study, the DSC results clearly proved that definitive differences are present between the stages of disc degeneration in calorimetric measures. The structural differences between the stages could be also demonstrated by histology. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.