Spine surgery procedure – no better than placebo
Hot off the presses!
A common spine surgery procedure known as vertebroplasty has been found in two studies to be no more effective than a sham procedure.
In vertebroplasty, bone cement is injected into a fractured vertebra (primarily compression fractures). This would certainly seem to be a good thing. The amazing thing is that the control group, who did not actually have the cement injected, also had a “substantial degree of reduction in various measures of disability and pain”. The results in both groups were virtually identical.
“There are also unresolved questions about whether cementing one vertebra can stress others and lead to more breaks”. Which is one reason why most spinal fusion surgeries lead to further problems.
So what we are now seeing are independent studies showing that a lot of procedures which seemed essential and incontrovertible, do not have a basis in fact. These include popular knee surgeries and even the insertion of stents to open cardiac blood vessels. One could even say they are unscientific.
References [link here], [link here] and [link here].
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Reader Comments
In fact we people very much scared about such type of surgeries and even if we could heard the name of it…but you very well explained the reality about Spine surgery procedure..thanks
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