[Therapeutic progress in lumbar spinal stenosis]

Abstract

Along with the population aging in China, patients with lumbar spinal stenosis(LSS) caused by recessive change incessantly increase. At present, there is no adequate evidence to recommend any specific nonoperative treatment for LSS, and surgery is still an effective method. The cilincal symptoms of the patients without conservative treatment got improvement after surgery, which is the strongest evidence base. Spinal instability after simple decompression promotes the development of fusion technique, and the accelerated adjacent segment degeneration and no relief in symptoms after fusion lead to dynamic fixation technology emerge as the times require. Patients with spinal canal decompression whether need bone fusion or not is still controversial. For the past few years, the operation of simple decompression for LSS obviously decreased, whereas the decompression plus fusion surgery showed sustainable growth. Decompression complicated with fusion was more and more adopted in LSS, in order to reduce the hidden risk of spinal instability and deformity. Although decompressive operation has determinate effect, now it is still unclear if the therapeutic effect of decompression complicated with fusion is better than simple decompression. This article reviews the current studies to explore whether decompression plus bone fusion is applicable for LSS. To further explore the best choice of surgical treatment for LSS, we focused on evidence-based therapeutic options.

Keywords: Decompression; Spinal fusion; Spinal stenosis.