A study published in Spine compares lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis patients who were treated as part of the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial against the patients in the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database.
The NSQIP patients were treated between 2010 and 2012. There were 368 surgical patients with degenerative spondylolisthesis in SPORT and 955 in NSQIP.
Here are five findings from the study:
1. There were more female patients in SPORT and more patients who smoked in NSQIP. The patients in NSQIP also had a greater BMI on average, but there was no difference between the two in patient age and race.
2. There were large differences noted in surgical procedures types. Most noticeably, the NSQIP patients were more likely to have an interbody fusion than SPORT patients — 52.4 percent of the NSQIP patients had interbody fusions, compared with 12.5 percent of the SPORT patients.
3. These complication rate and perioperative factors were similar between the two groups:
• Operative time
• Wound infection
• Wound dehiscence
• Postoperative transfusion
• Postoperative mortality
4. The average length of stay was shorter for NSQIP patients — 3.7 days — when compared with SPORT patients who stayed at the hospital for 5.8 days after surgery on average.
5. While surgical procedure distribution was different, the study supports "the generaliziblity of the surgical SPORT degenerative spondylolisthesis study," concluded the researchers.