Herniated disk surgery shows no benefit

Two recent big government studies on back surgery for painful herniated disks show no benefit over non-surgical treatment. Lead author Dr. James Weinstein of Dartmouth Medical School followed 472 patients age 42 on average for two years after randomly being assigned to surgery or non-invasive measures, including education, physical therapy, or painkillers. Surgery involved removing the bulging disk. Both patient groups improved equally. 5% of surgery patients had complications, and 4% required a second surgery.

In the second group, researchers followed 743 patients for 2 years. While the surgery patients reported less pain after 3 months, there was no difference in pain at 2 years between the two groups. About 250,000 patients have disk surgery for sciatica in the US every year, at a cost of about $6000 ($1.5 billion annually) plus follow-up care.

Journal of the American Medical Association, November 22, 2006

 

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