A new study on back surgeries has shown that there has been a significant increase in spinal surgeries between the years of 2002 and 2007. In this study, conducted by physicians at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that the increase went from 1.3 to 19.9 surgeries per 100,00 medicare patients. Complex surgeries were defined as procedures in which 3 or more vertebrae were fused.
Now they didn’t draw any conclusions from this study, but certainly there are a couple of things we need to consider here.
As spinal surgery is the last option for most patients, what conservative options did they try before surgery? The statistical outcomes for these types of surgeries are still not that great- so surgeons typically don’t perform them unless there is a very good reason.
Are there lifestyle factors which increase the likelihood that we are damaging our spines to the point that surgery is necessary? Does the fact that Americans seem to be less active contribute to this? Is their a correlation to the rate of obesity?
These questions will probably be addressed in another study, but it would be hard to imagine that lifestyle and preventive considerations would not have affected these increases in a significant way. As I said, spinal surgery is a last option for most patients, and I know that there are things we can all do to decrease the likelihood that we will get to that point.
Thanks for tuning in.
-Andy
