ReviewEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2013
The evidence on surgical interventions for low back disorders, an overview of systematic reviews.
Review in European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
37 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 74 citations in OpenAlex.
- Surgery for adult spondylolisthesis: a systematic review of the evidence.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2016Pooled it
- Traditional Chinese medicine for neck pain and low back pain: a systematic review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2015Pooled it
- Comparison of 3 Different Minimally Invasive Surgical Techniques for Lumbar Spinal Stenosis: A Randomized Clinical Trial.JAMA network open · 2022Trial
- Effects of pre-surgery physiotherapy on walking ability and lower extremity strength in patients with degenerative lumbar spine disorder: Secondary outcomes of the PREPARE randomised controlled trial.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2019Trial
- Trial
- Study-protocol for a randomized controlled trial comparing clinical and radiological results after three different posterior decompression techniques for lumbar spinal stenosis: the Spinal Stenosis Trial (SST) (part of the NORDSTEN Study).BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2017Trial
- PREPARE: Pre-surgery physiotherapy for patients with degenerative lumbar spine disorder: a randomized controlled trial protocol.BMC musculoskeletal disorders · 2016Trial
- Article
- Material and Geometric Innovations in Lumbar and Cervical Interbody Devices: A Systematic Scoping Review.Annals of biomedical engineering · 2026Review
- Bibliometric analysis of bone metastasis from prostate cancer research from 2007 to 2024.Discover oncology · 2026Article
- L5-S1 Anatomic Features Relevant to Minimally Invasive Decompression and Fusion: A Cadaveric and Imaging-Based Study.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The effect of traditional Chinese exercises on low Back pain and disability in middle-aged and older adults: A systematic review.Preventive medicine reports · 2025Review
- Practice variation in surgical treatment for lumbar degenerative disc disease: exploring regional and hospital factors influencing surgical rates.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The role of spinal surgery in the treatment of low back pain.The Medical journal of Australia · 2023Review
- Practice Variation Research in Degenerative Lumbar Disc Surgery: A Literature Review on Design Characteristics and Outcomes.Global spine journal · 2022Review
- How is recovery defined and measured in patients with low back pain? Protocol for a mixed study systematic review.BMJ open · 2022Article
- A Study on COMP and CTX-II as Molecular Markers for the Diagnosis of Intervertebral Disc Degeneration.BioMed research international · 2021Article
- The Influence of Unemployment and Disability Status on Clinical Outcomes in Patients Receiving Surgery for Low Back-Related Disorders: An Observational Study.Spine surgery and related research · 2021Article
- TCM nonpharmacological interventions for chronic low-back pain: A protocol for systematic review and network meta-analysis.Medicine · 2020Article
- Histomorphology and immunohistochemical patterns in degenerative disc disease and clinical-radiological correlations: a prospective study.European spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society · 2020Observational
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
8 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeMany systematic reviews have been published on surgical interventions for low back disorders. The objective of this overview was to evaluate the available evidence from systematic reviews on the effectiveness of surgical interventions for disc herniation, spondylolisthesis, stenosis, and degenerative disc disease (DDD). An earlier version of this review was published in 2006 and since then, many new, better quality reviews have been published.
methodsA comprehensive search was performed in the Cochrane database of systematic reviews (CDSR), database of reviews of effectiveness (DARE) and Pubmed. Two reviewers independently performed the selection of studies, risk of bias assessment, and data extraction. Included are Cochrane reviews and non-Cochrane systematic reviews published in peer-reviewed journals. The following conditions were included: disc herniation, spondylolisthesis, and DDD with or without spinal stenosis. The following comparisons were evaluated: (1) surgery vs. conservative care, and (2) different surgical techniques compared to one another. The methodological quality of the systematic reviews was evaluated using AMSTAR. We report (pooled) analyses from the individual reviews.
resultsThirteen systematic reviews on surgical interventions for low back disorders were included for disc herniation (n = 6), spondylolisthesis (n = 2), spinal stenosis (n = 4), and DDD (n = 4). Nine (69 %) were of high quality. Five reviews provided a meta-analysis of which two showed a significant difference. For the treatment of spinal stenosis, intervertebral process devices showed more favorable results compared to conservative treatment on the Zurich Claudication Questionnaire [mean difference (MD) 23.2 95 % CI 18.5-27.8]. For degenerative spondylolisthesis, fusion showed more favorable results compared to decompression for a mixed aggregation of clinical outcome measures (RR 1.40 95 % CI 1.04-1.89) and fusion rate favored instrumented fusion over non-instrumented fusion (RR 1.37 95 % CI 1.07-1.75).
conclusionsFor most of the comparisons, the included reviews were not significant and/or clinically relevant differences between interventions were identified. Although the quality of the reviews was quite acceptable, the quality of the included studies was poor. Future studies are likely to influence our assessment of these interventions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.