The North American Spine Society released four documents with guidelines for diagnosing and treating adult vertebral fractures.
Four things to know:
1. Charles Cho, MD, led "Evidence-Based Clinical Guidelines for Multidisciplinary Spine Care" which includes two documents on neoplastic spinal fractures and osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures, according to a Sept. 24 news release.
2. Charles Reitman, MD, led "Appropriate Use Criteria" which covers additional guidelines for neoplastic spinal fractures and osteoporotic vertebral fractures.
3. The documents provide a total of 51 clinical questions and 90 recommendation statements. The recommendations are graded based on their strength of clinical evidence.
4. "The definition of acute compression fracture in these guidelines now incorporates clinical evaluation and imaging findings rather than timing of the fracture," Dr. Cho said in the release. "This will help select all the patients with acute fractures that can benefit from intervention and it will also include those patients who continue to have pain despite prolonged duration of symptoms."