A new study that received the "Best Paper" award at the North Aerican Spine Society 29th Annual Meeting examines adult spinal deformities and how operative treatment can improve pain and disability for these patients.
The study is a prospective, multicenter study following patients for two years. The study was conducted through the International Spine Study Group and included 286 operative and 403 nonoperative patients who underwent treatment for spinal deformity.
After comparing baseline measures and outcomes between the two groups of patients with unmatched and propesity matched analysis, the study authors found:
- Significant improvement for the operative patients across multiple measures of health-related quality of life that assessed general health, pain and disability.
- The nonoperative patients did not demonstrate significant change in any of the standardized measures of health-related quality of life.
- Results suggested nonoperative treatment, at best, maintained presenting levels of pain and disability after two years.
"This is a timely and useful study because our aging population will be facing more symptomatic spinal degeneration and deformity than ever," said NASS Annual Meeting Program Chair Charles Reitman, MD, professor and vice chair of orthopedic surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. "However, as technology and surgical expertise continue to grow, it is critical that additional research be done to insure understanding of appropriate surgical indiciations so that utilization of surgery as well as outcomes for these patients may be optimized."