The Spine Journal published a report recently comparing the results from the SPORT lumbar disc herniation cohort with the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database to identify different trends in disc herniation treatment.
The procedures from the NSQIP database were performed between 2010 and 2012. The researchers compared 6,846 NSQIP discectomy patients to the randomized SPORT surgical and nonoperative cohorts. The researchers found:
1. Patients in the NSQIP database were older than the SPORT trial patients on average. The NSQIP patients were around 48.2±14.5 years; the SPORT trial patients were 41.7±11.8 years for the surgical patients and 43±11.3 years for the nonoperative patients.
2. The NSQIP patients were also likely to have a higher body mass index. The NSQIP patients reported a BMI of around 29.6 while the SPORT trial patients report 278 for the surgically treated patients and 28.2 for the nonoperative treatment patients.
3. There were no statistical differences in the groups for gender or race while smoking status was similar between the SPORT nonoperative group and NSQIP but lower for SPORT surgical patients.
4. There were no statistical differences in the groups with these factors:
-Operative time
-Length of stay
-Deep wound infections
-Wound dehiscence
-Total wound complications
-Blood transfusion
5. The SPORT one-year reoperation rates were higher than NSQIP. The NSQIP readmission rate was 2 percent.