Spinal Fusion Surgery Patients Worse Off Than Patients Treated Non-Surgically.

Maureen Salamon writing in HealthDay reported, “Spinal fusion surgery for chronic low back pain  -  an increasingly controversial treatment that has exploded in use over the last 20 years – leads to higher rates of permanent disability for worker’s compensation patients compared to those treated non-surgically,” according to a study in Spine.  Researchers randomly selected “725 people with low back pain treated with fusion surgery and 725 whose more conservative treatment included exercise and physical therapy.” They found that “11 percent were permanently disabled compared with 2 percent of those without surgery”; and nearly “85 percent of the spinal fusion patients continued using opioid painkillers vs. 49 percent of non-surgical patients, with those who had had the surgery upping their daily opioid use by 41 percent.” Avoid this kind of surgery!