Back Pain - Spinal Surgery

the highest number of back surgeries were done in Pueblo Colorado ( 1980-1996). Patient's had multiple back surgeries sometimes upto eight procedures in a single patient.

it was concluded that the rate of surgeries in a particular region had to do more with the number of orthopedic surgeon, rather then the pathology in the spine.

Another study done in Utah, again on the Medicare Population showed Utah laminectomy and discectomy rates were at least 20% higher than the U.S. average. In this study they reason of increased number of surgeries was the diagnosis of spinal stenosis and not the number of surgeons.

Since managed care took over the number of surgeries has been declining in that population. Maybe the patients in managed care have better backs?

In 1998 yet another study was done this time in Washington state which looked at complication rates in back surgery. Spinal fusion was associated with wider surgical exposure, more extensive dissection, and longer operative times than lumbar surgery without fusion, and previous studies have shown higher complication rates and hospital charges associated with these more complex procedures. In elderly patients, spinal fusion operations were associated with higher mortality rates than laminectomy or discectomy alone, and reoperation rates were not lower. they found higher number of complicates were associated with fusion then with a simple laminectomy.

In most people the back pain will go away within four weeks thus a person may want to wait on conservative treatments. Laminectomy which is simple removal of bone done for spinal stenosis is better then Laminectomy and Fusion. In a Fusion the upper and lower Vertebra are joined together. This is done to reduce the movement of the individual vertebrae.

Yet another study was done in Darthmouth this time comparing medical treatments to surgical treatments. They found that surgery only offered a short-term benefit. The long-term outlook for both treatments was similar.

My own personal experience in many patients who had failed back surgeries was that if they were given trigger point treatment they improved.

So if you have back pain there is always a simple treatment.

Spinal stenosis is a medical emergency and needs to be surgically treated , or can result is severe paralysis.

Following is another study :

Spine. 1994 Jun 1;19(11):1201-6. Related Articles, Links

An international comparison of back surgery rates.

Cherkin DC, Deyo RA, Loeser JD, Bush T, Waddell G.

Department of Health Services, University of Washington, Seattle.

SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA. Although high geographic variation in back surgery rates within the United States have been documented, international comparisons have not been published. METHODS. The authors compared rates of back surgery in eleven developed countries to determine if back surgery rates are higher: 1) in the United States than in other developed countries, 2) in countries with more neurologic and orthopaedic surgeons per capita, and 3) in countries with higher rates of other surgical procedures. Data on back surgery rates and physician supply were obtained from health agencies within these eleven countries. Country-specific rates of other surgical procedures were available from published sources. RESULTS. The rate of back surgery in the United States was at least 40% higher than in any other country and was more than five times those in England and Scotland. Back surgery rates increased almost linearly with the per capita supply of orthopaedic and neurosurgeons in the country. Countries with high back surgery rates also had high rates of other discretionary procedures such as tonsillectomy and hysterectomy. CONCLUSIONS. These findings illustrate the potentially large impact of health system differences on rates of back surgery. Better outcome studies, however, are needed to determine whether Americans are being subjected to excessive surgery or if those in other developed countries are suffering because back surgery is underutilized.

PMID: 8073310 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Clinics of Excellence

Female sexual problems

Breast size and disease

Breast Lymph drainage

Bras causing breast cancer

Breast Size and disease

Fibromyalgia

Autoimmune diseases

Autoimmmune diseases 1

Autoimmune diseases -3

Autoimmune aneurysm

Auto