ISASS Expresses Concern for the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality's Spinal Fusion Review

Spine
Kathleen Roney -

The International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery's official comments express concern for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's review of spinal fusion for lumbar degenerative disc or joint disease. Specifically, ISASS is concerned with the inaccuracy simplicity of AHRQ's assumption that all patients are identical. ISASS believes nothing could be further from the truth.

"Almost all cultures have recognized the idiom, comparing apples and oranges to refer to the incomparable difference between items which are by definition incommensurate. This false analogy [that all patients are identical] is compounded or faulted further when one recognizes that not all apples (or oranges) are alike," says ISASS. "A bucket of homogeneous patients is not reflective of how patients actually present with spinal conditions."

According to ISASS, AHRQ's false assumption impacts the study outcome inclusion/exclusion criteria systematic review that is now requested by governments/insurers to validate spinal treatment protocols.

To read more about ISASS' comments on specific questions, click here.

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