New research presented at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Annual Scientific Meeting examined whether three month outcomes after spine surgery could predict 12-month outcomes.
Matthew McGirt, MD, presented the research with data from 593 patients. The patients underwent lumbar spine surgery for degenerative disc disease as part of a prospective, longitudinal registry. The researchers found:
1. There were 11.5 percent of the patients who achieved the minimum clinical important difference for the Oswestry Disability Index at three months who eventually dropped below the threshold at 12 months.
2. Around 10.5 percent of the patients who didn't meet the minimum clinical important difference at three months surpassed the threshold at 12 months.
3. For ODI, achieving MCID at three months accurately predicted 12-month MCID with only 62.6 percent specificity and 86.8 percent sensitivity.
4. For postoperative health utility, 8.5 percent of patients lost MCID threshold improvement between three months and 12 months.
5. Four percent of the patients gained MCID threshold between three and 12 months for postoperative health utility.
6. For quality-adjusted life years, achieving MCID at three months accurately predicted 12 month MCID with only 87.7 percent specificity and 87.2 percent sensitivity.
7. The patient-reported treatment measures and effectiveness reported at three months correlated with the 12 month measures in the aggregate, but did not reliability predict the outcomes one year after surgery at the patient-level, concluded the study authors.