A new study published in Spine examines how obesity impacts outcomes for lumbar spinal surgery.
The researchers examined six and 12 month outcomes for patients who underwent lumbar decompression surgery for degenerative lumbar spinal canal stenosis. There were 656 patients in the Lumbar Spinal Outcome Study database; 166 patients met the inclusion criteria. The researchers found:
1. Around 30 percent of the patients had a BMI less than 25 — underweight and normal weight — and 43 percent had BMI between 25 and 30 — the preobesity group. Twenty-six percent of patients had a BMI of 30 or greater — the obese group.
2. More than one-third, 36 percent, of the obese patients reached the World Health Organization minimal clinically important differences in spinal stenosis measurements at six months after surgery. That number grew to 48 percent one year after surgery.
3. Estimated odds ratio for the minimal clinically important differences in the obese group was 0.78 at six months and 0.99 at 12 months, adjusting for the laminectomy levels.
4. The spinal stenosis measure, numeric rating scale, feeling thermometer and Roland and Morris Disability Questionnaire showed statistically significant average improvements at six and 12 months after surgery.
5. The researchers concluded obese patients could "expect clinical improvement after lumbar decompression for DLSS, but the percentage of patients with meaningful improvement is lower than in the group of patients with underweight, normal weight and pre-obese weight at six and 12 months."