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Outpatient lumbar, cervical spine surgery can be safe and effective in select patients
According to results of a recently published study, among properly selected patients, 99.8% were successfully discharged to their homes following same-day lumbar or cervical spine surgery.
The prospective single-center study of 1,149 outpatients who underwent lumbar or cervical spinal decompression for degenerative spinal disease (DSD) showed 0% surgical mortality and 51 patients (3.5%) who developed minor or major complications postoperatively. About 1.5% of patients (22 patients) had to be admitted to a hospital within 3 months due to surgery-related events, according to the findings from investigators in Norway.
Dural lesions with cerebrospinal fluid leakage (1.0%) and deep wound infection (0.9%) were the two most common complications following both kinds of outpatient surgeries. The results showed that any life-threatening hematomas were detected within 3 hours and 6 hours of lumbar and cervical surgery, respectively,
Researchers noted patient selection is important for outpatient surgery. Patients younger than 70 years of age, with few comorbidities and who need one-level lumbar discectomy, treatment for one-level lumbar canal stenosis or one-level anterior cervical decompression and fusion do well in an outpatient setting, they concluded. – by Robert Linnehan
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