Archives: Articles
Percutaneous lumbar laser disc decompression: an update of current evidence.
This systematic review by Singh et al (2013) provides an up to date review of the effectiveness of percutaneous lumbar laser discectomy. The acceptance of minimally invasive spine surgery continues to grow from both a demand by patients and amongst surgeons. The goals of having smaller incisions, limiting soft tissue trauma, shorter operating times and […]
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Modic changes of the lumbar spine: prevalence, risk factors, and association with disc degeneration and low back pain in a large-scale population-based cohort.
Mok et al. This recently published, population based cross sectional study by Mok et al, looked at the prevalence and risk factors associated with Modic changes in the lumbar spine among Southern Chinese subjects. This is one of the largest studies in regards to the number of patients included (N=2449) looking at Modic changes. One […]
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What level of pain are patients happy to live with after surgery for lumbar degenerative disorders?
This study by Fekete et al, which has been approved for publication in The Spine Journal, provided an alternative approach to evaluating clinical outcomes in patients with degenerative lumbar disorders. The study population was derived from a spine surgery outcomes database and EUROSPINE Spine Tango Registry. Over 6900 patients in the database met the inclusion […]
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ISSLS Prize winner: The anatomy of failure in lumbar disc herniation: an in vivo, multimodal, prospective study of 181 subjects.
Conventional wisdom states that the mode of failure and cause of disc herniation is secondary to a rupture of nucleus material through the annulus fibrosis. In this paper, the senior author prospectively defined the nature of intraoperatively identified disc herniations in 181 consecutive patients qualified for inclusion. Inclusion criteria included requiring a single level lumbar […]
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2009 ISSLS Prize Winner: Does discography cause accelerated progression of degeneration changes in the lumbar disc: a ten-year matched cohort study.
The 2009 ISSLS Prize Winner for the best paper was awarded to Carragee et al for the Paper Titled Does Discography Cause accelerated progression of degenerative changes in the lumbar Spine: In this paper, Dr. Carragee followed a group of asymptomatic volunteers who had discography from L3-S1 performed in 1997, and compared the results of […]
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Predictors of the efficacy of epidural steroid injections for structural lumbar degenerative pathology.
This study which has been accepted and is currently pending publication in The Spine Journal presents an interesting predictive model for lumbar epidural steroid injection efficacy for those who have specific defined degenerative pathology. Treatment success for this study was defined by achieving at least a 7.1% improvement on the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). Using […]
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The natural history of spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis.
This is a classic Spine Study looking at the natural history of spondylolysis and spondylolisthesis in a population of 500 first grade students in a small community bordering New York and Pennsylvania. The initial enrollment period was 1954 to 1957. The inclusion criteria was that the first grader had parental permission and attended one of […]
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1997 Volvo Award winner in clinical studies. Degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis with spinal stenosis: a prospective, randomized study comparing decompressive laminectomy and arthrodesis with and without spinal instrumentation.
This prominent historical study by Fischgrund et al published in 1997, was a well-controlled randomized trial looking at both clinical and radiographic outcomes of lumbar laminectomy with arthrodesis surgery in patients with degenerative spondylolisthesis and spinal stenosis. Patients in this study (N=68) were randomly assigned to two treatment groups; Lumbar laminectomy with posterolateral intertransverse process […]
