EFORT OTE Point/Counter Article. By Jens Ivar Brox, MD, consultant and researcher in the orthopaedic department, Oslo University Hospital, Oslo, Norway.
Surgeons are reluctant to perform lumbar disc arthroplasty.
Lumbar total disc arthroplasty was expected to replace spinal fusion for the treatment of chronic low back pain in patients with disc degeneration. The number of fusions performed for low back pain has continued to increase despite trials reporting that the effectiveness of this operation is only comparable with multidisciplinary
rehabilitation including cognitive treatment Jens Ivar Brox and exercises.
The number of disc arthroplasties performed, on the contrary, has been stable and constitutes only a small percentage of those patients operated on for disc degeneration. Trials have not shown that arthroplasty is more effective than fusion in reducing low back pain. One trial found statistically better results compared with multidisciplinary rehabilitation, but the difference was not considered of clinical benefit by an independent systematic review. (…)
Read the full article in the October 2013 issue of the EFORT OTE newsletter
