A new article in The Spine Journal recently examined the long-term change in health-related quality of life for patients undergoing surgical treatment for focal lumbar spinal stenosis compared with patients who underwent surgery for hip or knee osteoarthritis.
The researchers examined 99 patients with lumbar spinal stenosis who had one to two level spinal decompression with or without instrumented fusion. They compared these patients with 99 patients who underwent total hip arthroplasty and 99 patients who underwent total knee arthroplasty for osteoarthritis.
The researchers found that while revision rate was higher among patients undergoing lumbar spinal fusions than total joint replacement, all patients had comparable average long-term improvement in health-related quality of life from the baseline.
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