Quality of life, clinical and neurophysiological picture in patients operated on for lumbar stenosis.
BACKGROUND
In lumbar stenosis (LS) patients, clinical, neuroradiological and neurophysiological findings were not related to validated measurements of the outcomes that are more relevant to patients such as functional status and symptoms.


METHODS
We have retrospectively studied 30 patients surgically treated for LS. We have evaluated the patients by means of self-administered questionnaires (SF-36), clinical examination, and neuroradiological and neurophysiological measurements and we have registered preoperative and follow-up clinical and neurophysiological findings. Finally we evaluated the relations between patient-oriented data and validated conventional clinical and neurophysiological measurements.


RESULTS
The comparison between pre- and post-operative clinical picture showed an improvement of most parameters tested. The comparison between pre- and post-operative neurophysiological picture revealed worsening of most tested parameters. The comparison between the current sample and the Italian normative data for the SF-36 showed a worsening of physical aspects of health related quality of life; conversely there was an improvement of some mental domains.


CONCLUSIONS
In our sample of LS patients the most compromised SF-36 domain was Role-Physical that measures the difficulty in every-day activities due to physical problems. Conversely, the clinical findings showed a significant improvement after surgery: patients reported in particular lower sciatica after surgical treatment, but the neurophysiological evaluation did not show any improvement.
Caliandro
P
P
Department of Neurology, Università Cattolica, Roma, Italy. p.caliandro@rm.unicatt.it
Aulisa
L
L
Padua
R
R
Aprile
I
I
Mastantuoni
G
G
Mazza
O
O
Tonali
P
P
Padua
L
L
D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D019299:Decompression, Surgical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007796:Laminectomy / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008159:Lumbar Vertebrae / Q000601:surgery*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D011788:Quality of Life; D011843:Radiculopathy / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment / Q000379:methods; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013130:Spinal Stenosis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000601:surgery*; D016896:Treatment Outcome