ArticleEuropean spine journal : official publication of the European Spine Society, the European Spinal Deformity Society, and the European Section of the Cervical Spine Research Society2025
Decompensation of degenerative lumbar stenosis: do patients need immediate surgery?
Article 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, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Letter to the Editor concerning "Decompensation of degenerative lumbar stenosis: do patients need immediate surgery?" by M. Duigou, et al. (Eur Spine J [2025]; doi: 10.1007/s00586-025-09272-3).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 · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeDegenerative lumbar spinal stenosis (DLSS) represents an increasing challenge due to the aging population. The natural course of untreated DLSS is largely unknown. For the acute DLSS decompensations, the main concern remains the opportunity and timing of surgery, i.e. does emergency decompression improve the neurological prognosis? This question continues to be controversial, and we've tried to clarify it.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective analysis of 85 consecutive patients who underwent surgery for decompensated DLSS between January 2020 and 2024.
resultsAll patients presented with motor deficit (84.7%) and/or genital-sphincter dysfunction (25.9%). Surgical procedures included decompression alone (77.6%), decompression with discectomy (18.8%), or decompression with arthrodesis (3.5%). Complete neurological recovery was observed in 53 patients (62.4%) by the first follow-up visit (mean 4.6 months), while 32 patients (37.6%) had persistent neurological sequelae at final FU (mean 11.8 months). No significant association was found between neurological recovery and surgical timing, regardless of intervention within 48 h (p = 0.529), 7 days (p = 0.391), 15 days (p = 0.213), or 1 month (p = 0.435). Additionally, neither the degree of stenosis on MRI (p = 0.147), initial deficit severity (p = 0.06), patient age (p = 0.410), nor number of muscles involved (p = 0.328) were significantly associated with recovery.
conclusionOur findings suggest that urgent surgical intervention for decompensated DLSS does not significantly improve neurological outcomes.
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