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Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

Surgical options for lumbar spinal stenosis

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, November 2016
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (92nd percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (71st percentile)

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2 news outlets
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1 blog
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10 X users
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4 Facebook pages
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1 Wikipedia page

Citations

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125 Dimensions

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426 Mendeley
Title
Surgical options for lumbar spinal stenosis
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, November 2016
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd012421
Pubmed ID
Authors

Gustavo C Machado, Paulo H Ferreira, Rafael IJ Yoo, Ian A Harris, Marina B Pinheiro, Bart W Koes, Maurits W van Tulder, Magdalena Rzewuska, Christopher G Maher, Manuela L Ferreira

Abstract

Hospital charges for lumbar spinal stenosis have increased significantly worldwide in recent times, with great variation in the costs and rates of different surgical procedures. There have also been significant increases in the rate of complex fusion and the use of spinal spacer implants compared to that of traditional decompression surgery, even though the former is known to incur costs up to three times higher. Moreover, the superiority of these new surgical procedures over traditional decompression surgery is still unclear. To determine the efficacy of surgery in the management of patients with symptomatic lumbar spinal stenosis and the comparative effectiveness between commonly performed surgical techniques to treat this condition on patient-related outcomes. We also aimed to investigate the safety of these surgical interventions by including perioperative surgical data and reoperation rates. Review authors performed electronic searches of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, AMED, Web of Science, LILACS and three trials registries from their inception to 16 June 2016. Authors also conducted citation tracking on the reference lists of included trials and relevant systematic reviews. This review included only randomised controlled trials that investigated the efficacy and safety of surgery compared with no treatment, placebo or sham surgery, or with another surgical technique in patients with lumbar spinal stenosis. Two reviewers independently assessed the studies for inclusion and performed the 'Risk of bias' assessment, using the Cochrane Back and Neck Review Group criteria. Reviewers also extracted demographics, surgery details, and types of outcomes to describe the characteristics of included studies. Primary outcomes were pain intensity, physical function or disability status, quality of life, and recovery. The secondary outcomes included measurements related to surgery, such as perioperative blood loss, operation time, length of hospital stay, reoperation rates, and costs. We grouped trials according to the types of surgical interventions being compared and categorised follow-up times as short-term when less than 12 months and long-term when 12 months or more. Pain and disability scores were converted to a common 0 to 100 scale. We calculated mean differences for continuous outcomes and relative risks for dichotomous outcomes. We pooled data using the random-effects model in Review Manager 5.3, and used the GRADE approach to assess the quality of the evidence. We included a total of 24 randomised controlled trials (reported in 39 published research articles or abstracts) in this review. The trials included 2352 participants with lumbar spinal stenosis with symptoms of neurogenic claudication. None of the included trials compared surgery with no treatment, placebo or sham surgery. Therefore, all included studies compared two or more surgical techniques. We judged all trials to be at high risk of bias for the blinding of care provider domain, and most of the trials failed to adequately conceal the randomisation process, blind the participants or use intention-to-treat analysis. Five trials compared the effects of fusion in addition to decompression surgery. Our results showed no significant differences in pain relief at long-term (mean difference (MD) -0.29, 95% confidence interval (CI) -7.32 to 6.74). Similarly, we found no between-group differences in disability reduction in the long-term (MD 3.26, 95% CI -6.12 to 12.63). Participants who received decompression alone had significantly less perioperative blood loss (MD -0.52 L, 95% CI -0.70 L to -0.34 L) and required shorter operations (MD -107.94 minutes, 95% CI -161.65 minutes to -54.23 minutes) compared with those treated with decompression plus fusion, though we found no difference in the number of reoperations (risk ratio (RR) 1.25, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.92). Another three trials investigated the effects of interspinous process spacer devices compared with conventional bony decompression. These spacer devices resulted in similar reductions in pain (MD -0.55, 95% CI -8.08 to 6.99) and disability (MD 1.25, 95% CI -4.48 to 6.98). The spacer devices required longer operation time (MD 39.11 minutes, 95% CI 19.43 minutes to 58.78 minutes) and were associated with higher risk of reoperation (RR 3.95, 95% CI 2.12 to 7.37), but we found no difference in perioperative blood loss (MD 144.00 mL, 95% CI -209.74 mL to 497.74 mL). Two trials compared interspinous spacer devices with decompression plus fusion. Although we found no difference in pain relief (MD 5.35, 95% CI -1.18 to 11.88), the spacer devices revealed a small but significant effect in disability reduction (MD 5.72, 95% CI 1.28 to 10.15). They were also superior to decompression plus fusion in terms of operation time (MD 78.91 minutes, 95% CI 30.16 minutes to 127.65 minutes) and perioperative blood loss (MD 238.90 mL, 95% CI 182.66 mL to 295.14 mL), however, there was no difference in rate of reoperation (RR 0.70, 95% CI 0.32 to 1.51). Overall there were no differences for the primary or secondary outcomes when different types of surgical decompression techniques were compared among each other. The quality of evidence varied from 'very low quality' to 'high quality'. The results of this Cochrane review show a paucity of evidence on the efficacy of surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis, as to date no trials have compared surgery with no treatment, placebo or sham surgery. Placebo-controlled trials in surgery are feasible and needed in the field of lumbar spinal stenosis. Our results demonstrate that at present, decompression plus fusion and interspinous process spacers have not been shown to be superior to conventional decompression alone. More methodologically rigorous studies are needed in this field to confirm our results.

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X Demographics

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 426 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Portugal 1 <1%
Unknown 425 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 47 11%
Student > Bachelor 44 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 41 10%
Student > Master 40 9%
Other 38 9%
Other 100 23%
Unknown 116 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 170 40%
Nursing and Health Professions 40 9%
Neuroscience 18 4%
Psychology 11 3%
Engineering 9 2%
Other 45 11%
Unknown 133 31%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 28. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 September 2021.
All research outputs
#1,378,313
of 25,457,858 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#2,932
of 11,842 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#24,838
of 318,026 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#72
of 250 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,457,858 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 94th percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,842 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 38.9. This one has done well, scoring higher than 75% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 318,026 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 250 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.