A new study published in Clinical Spine Surgery examines how common medical conditions affect the outcome of anterior lumbar interbody fusion.
The researchers examined 231 patients who underwent ALIF for several factors that could impact outcome. The researchers found:
1. The fusion was successful in 99 percent of the patients with a 13.8 percent complication rate.
2. Only 1.8 percent of the complications occurred intraoperatively; 12 percent occurred during follow-up.
3. Complications didn’t correlate with demographics, comorbidities, smoking or previous lumbar surgery.
4. The only factor significantly associated with a poor outcome was ALIF at T12-L4.
5. The researchers performed two models — one using BMI and sex interaction and the second using sex, level of surgery, diabetes and BMI as variables—and both models were able to successfully predict outcomes. The second model only successfully predicted outcomes for males.