Predicting Poor Pain Control Following Elective Spine Surgery: Study

New study developed and validated a clinical prediction scale that can be used to conclude which patients are more likely to encounter inadequate pain control following elective spine surgery. Spine surgeons can ensure that patients obtain proper patient education and individualized clinical care with the goal of improved postoperative pain management, armed with this knowledge. The findings of the study are published in the Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. Greater numbers of people are undergoing spinal degeneration and consequent pain and lack of mobility, as the world population ages. This is one reason for the steady rise in the number of spine surgeries over the last few decades. Rapid advancements in diagnostic and surgical technologies and improvements in intraoperative techniques have also led to the increase.

Unfortunately, poor pain control in the days following spine surgery remains common.

The authors of the study conducted a retrospective cohort study of data from 1300 adult patients who were registered in the prospective Canadian Spine Outcomes and Research Network registry between August 28, 2014, and October 4, 2017. These volunteers had undergone elective spine surgery and needed hospitalization for at least 24 hours postoperatively.

The most common complaint was radiculopathy (42%), and the most common disorder was spinal stenosis (39%). The patient's postoperative level of pain was estimated using an 11-point numerical scale. During the first 24 hours after surgery, 57 percent of patients experienced poor pain control.

In the study, patients were randomly allocated to one of two cohort groups: 390 patients to the validation cohort to examine whether the new scoring system fulfilled its purpose and 910 patients to the model development cohort to generate the prediction score for poor postoperative pain control.

Data were analyzed to determine what patient variables are associated with poor pain control.

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The study shows that more than half of the patients encounter poorly control pain after spine surgery. Identifying patients at enhanced risk during discussions about management and before surgery will allow doctors to develop precise treatment strategies for each patient, improve postoperative pain, and facilitate patient recovery.

Source-Medindia