A positive straight leg raise test indicates what?

• A. Cervical radiculopathy
• B. Lumbar nerve root irritation/radiculopathy
• C. Hip pathology
• D. Piriformis syndrome

Answer: (B)

A straight leg raise tests how much tension is placed on the lumbosacral nerve roots and sciatic nerve when you stretch the leg. If raising the leg with the knee straight reproduces the patient’s radicular symptoms—pain, numbness, or tingling that travels down the leg in a nerve-root pattern, typically below the knee—it points to irritation or compression of a lumbar nerve root, most commonly from a disc herniation at levels like L5-S1. This is how we distinguish lumbar radiculopathy from other sources of leg pain: hip problems tend to produce pain focused around the hip or groin without a clear nerve-root distribution, and piriformis syndrome can mimic sciatica but is not the classic nerve-root–driven leg pain pattern seen with lumbar radiculopathy. Cervical radiculopathy, meanwhile, would produce symptoms in the neck and arm, not the leg. So a positive test best indicates lumbar nerve root irritation/radiculopathy.