BACK SURGERY BETTER FOR SEVERE SCIATICA AND SPINAL STENOSIS

Surgical treatment for patients with certain types of lower back pain provides better relief than nonsurgical treatment, according to studies by researchers from the MGH, the Maine Medical Assessment Foundation and the University of Washington at Seattle. The studies, reported in the August Spine, looked at patients treated for two common causes of low back and leg pain -- sciatica, severe lower back pain that radiates into a leg, and spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the canal carrying the spinal cord that causes back and leg pain in the elderly.

In both groups, surgically treated patients reported greater levels of improvement after one year than those treated by such nonsurgical means as rest, medication, exercise, physical therapy and spinal manipulation. Steven Atlas, MD, MPH, of the MGH Medical Practices Evaluation Center, was lead author of the reports.