Lumbar stenosis surgery: Spine surgeons not insurance companies should decide when enough is better than too much.

Conclusions: The decision to perform spine surgery for lumbar stenosis/DS, including decompression alone, decompression with non instrumented or instrumented fusion should be in the hands of competent spinal surgeons with their patients' best outcomes in mind. Presently, insurance companies have stepped into the "void" left by spinal surgeons' failing to regulate when, what type, and why spinal surgery is being offered to patients with spinal stenosis. Clearly, spine surgeons need to establish guidelines to maximize patient safety and outcomes for lumbar stenosis surgery. We need to remove insurance companies from their present roles as the "spinal police." PMID: 29119045 [PubMed]
Source: Surgical Neurology International - Category: Neurosurgery Tags: Surg Neurol Int Source Type: research