Recent studies led by Rick Delamarter, MD, co-director of the Cedars-Sinai Spine Center, compared disc replacement surgery with spinal fusion operations to treat degenerative disc disease, if conservative treatment methods fail to relieve the patient’s back pain.
In one study, researchers examined 209 patients with damaged cervical spine discs who received either minimally invasive disc replacement or spinal fusion surgery. Four years after surgery, the fusion patients were four times more likely to need additional surgery and half of those operations were necessary because of new disc complications occurring at adjacent levels to the fusion.
Nearly 88 percent of the disc replacement patients reported high satisfaction with the surgery, compared with 76 percent of fusion patients.
The other study focused on patients suffering from three-level lower back disc disease, comparing the cost of care between disc replacement and fusion. The total hospital costs for the disc replacement patients were, on average, 49 percent lower than fusion patients. Healthcare expenditures for back pain have exceeded $91 billion annually over the past few years, Dr. Delamarter said in the report, and artificial disc replacement could help lower this cost.
Read the Medical News Today report on artificial disc replacement.
Read other coverage on spine surgery:
– Spine Surgery in 2011 and Beyond: 7 Points About the Future of Spine Surgery
– 5 Points on Cervical Spine Surgery
– Spine Surgery Research: 3 Areas of Focus
