Updated March 10, 2011.
If you agree to a back surgery for disc degeneration, herniated disc or radiculopathy, you have a right to expect to a safe relief of your pain in my opinion. Unfortunately, a new study, published in the Feb 15 issue of Spine demonstrated that's not always the case.
Researchers looked at 1450 Worker's Compensation records of people with chronic low back pain. Half had fusion surgery and the other half (called the control group) did not.
The researchers wanted to know how well the patients fared 2 years after either the surgery, or the injury (for the control group).
Here's what they found:
- Only 26% of surgery patients were able to get back to work.
- 36% had some kind of post surgical complication and 27% needed another operation.
- 76% needed opioid pain medication after the surgery (opioid use in the surgery group increased by 41% because of the surgery).
- 11% were permanently disabled.
The researchers concluded their narrative by noting that factors contributing to the ability to predict a patient's likelihood of getting back to work after a lumbar fusion were:
- Number of days off before the surgery
- Whether or not the patient had a lawyer
- If the patient used morphine daily
- If the patient had complications relating to the surgery.
Source: Nguyen, Trang H. MD, PhD*; Randolph, David C. MD, MPH*; Talmage, James MDâ? ; Succop, Paul PhD*; Travis, Russell MDâ?¡ Long-term Outcomes of Lumbar Fusion Among Workers' Compensation Subjects: A Historical Cohort Study. Spine: 15 February 2011 - Volume 36 - Issue 4 - p 320-331.
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