A propensity-matched study of patients with symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis opting for surgery versus not

A propensity-matched study of patients with symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis opting for surgery versus not

Blog Article

Introduction: Although most surgeons treating patients with lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) believe that surgical treatment is superior to conservative measures, systematics reviews have concluded that no solid evidence support this.Research question: To compare change at 1-year of walking ability, health-related quality of life, leg and back pain in patients with symptomatic LSS referred to a spine surgery clinic who opted for surgery and those who did not.Material and methods: The study included 149 operated and 149 non-operated patients seen by spine surgeons and diagnosed with LSS.The non-operated patients were propensity-matched oas ba?adores to a cohort retrieved from the Danish national spine registry.

Matching was done on demographics and baseline outcome measures.The outcomes was walking improvement measured by item 4 of the Oswestry Disability Index, EQ-5D-3L, global assessment (GA) of back/leg pain, back and leg pain on the Visual Analogue Scale and the Short Form 36 transition item 2.Results: Less than half of the non-operated reached MCID on EQ-5D-3L, VAS pain legs or VAS pain back where 2/3 of the operated did.The largest difference was VAS back silbrade pain where 27.

5% of the non-operated reached an MCID of 12 points compared to 71.8% in the operated group.Discussion and conclusion: Surgical treated patients improved better than non-operated on all outcome measures.However, further research is required to compare the effectiveness of surgical decompression with non-operative care for LSS patients.