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Patients with lumbar spinal stenosis have quality of life comparable to THA, TKA patients after surgery
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Patients with lumbar spinal stenosis who underwent decompression with or without fusion had equally good postoperative health-related quality of life compared to patients with osteoarthritis who underwent total hip or total knee arthroplasty.
“Significant improvements in health-related quality of life after surgical treatment of focal lumbar spinal stenosis (FLSS) with or without spondylolisthesis and hip and knee osteoarthritis (OA) are sustained for a mean of 7 to 8 years, with a minimum of 5-year follow-up,” the authors wrote in the abstract. “Despite a higher revision rate, patients undergoing surgery for focal lumbar spinal stenosis can expect a comparable long-term average improvement in health-related quality of life from baseline compared with their peers undergoing total knee arthroplasty and to a lesser extent total hip arthroplasty.”
In the retrospective, multicenter, longitudinal matched cohort study of data prospectively collected between 2000 and 2003, the researchers compared FLSS patients who had decompression with or without fusion to patients with OA who underwent total hip arthroplasty (THA) or total knee arthroplasty (TKA). At the 5-year follow-up, there were 78 patients in the FLSS group, 91 patients in the THA group and 84 patients in the TKA group. The average age of FLSS patients was 64.2 years, of THA OA patients was 63 years and of TKA OA patients was 64.6 years. There were 59 males and 40 females in each group.
Mean SF-36 physical component summary and mental component summary improved from baseline to 5-year follow-up in all three groups. Short Form-36 physical improved from 8.5 points to 6.4 points in the FLSS group, from 12.3 points to 7 points in the THA group, and from 8.3 points to 4.9 points in the TKA group.
Researchers noted more improvement in the SF-36 physical component summary scores in the THA group than in the FLSS group. There was no change in the mental component summary scores between groups.
Disclosure: Rampersaud is a consultant for Medtronic and received a grant from Toronto Western/General Foundation paid to his institution.
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