A study from Plano-based Texas Back Institute found positive clinical results for patients having hybrid spine surgery.
Researchers looked at a series of 305 patients having lumbar hybrid surgery (a disc replacement at one level and fusion at an adjacent level) since 2005 and measured clinical outcome data. The mean follow-up duration was just over half a year.
Hybrid spine patients had statistically significant improvements in the mean values of visual analog scale scores for back pain and leg pain, and Oswestry Disability Index improved from 45.5 to 24.6.
Reoperation occurred in 16.1% of patients, and many were to remove posterior instrumentation at the fusion level. Reoperation at the total disc replacement level was needed for nine patients, and three of them needed removal or revision.
Scott Blumenthal, MD, an investigator on the study said the findings, published in the Jan. 15 edition of Spine, add to growing literature supporting level-specific anterior reconstruction.
"Unfortunately most of the payers don't recognize this and deem it 'experimental' to avoid having to cover it," he said in a Jan. 6 email to Becker's. "This shortsightedness has the opposite intended effect meaning more levels are fused than need to be."
Dr. Blumenthal, Richard Guyer, MD; Jessica Shellock, MD; Jack Zigler, MD, and Donna Ohnmeiss, PhD, Emily Courtois and Cody Griffin, DO, are all listed as study investigators.