title: Older Age and Leg Pain Are Good Predictors of Pain and Disability Outcomes in 2710 Patients Who Receive Lumbar Fusion.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Identifying appropriate candidates for lumbar spine fusion is a challenging and controversial topic. The purpose of this study was to identify baseline characteristics related to poor/favorable outcomes at 1 year for a patient who received lumbar spine fusion.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aims of this study were to describe baseline characteristics of those who received lumbar surgery and to identify baseline characteristics from a spine repository that were related to poor and favorable pain and disability outcomes for patient who received lumbar fusion (with or without decompression), who were followed up for 1 full year and discriminate predictor variables that were either or in contrast to prognostic variables reported in the literature.
  
  
  METHODS
  This study analyzed data from 2710 patients who underwent lumbar spine fusion. All patient data was part of a multicenter, multi-national spine repository. Ten relatively commonly captured data variables were used as predictors for the study. Univariate/multivariate logistic regression analyses were run against outcome variables of pain/disability.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Multiple univariate findings were associated with pain/disability outcomes at 1 year including age, previous surgical history, baseline disability, baseline pain, baseline quality of life scores, and leg pain greater than back pain. Notably significant multivariate findings for both pain and disability include older age, previous surgical history, and baseline mental summary scores, disability, and pain.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Leg pain greater than back pain and older age may yield promising value when predicting positive outcomes. Other significant findings may yield less value since these findings are similar to those that are considered to be prognostic regardless of intervention type.
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedics, Duke University, 2200 W. Main St. Ste. B230, Durham, NC USA.
authors.forename: Chad E
authors.initials: CE
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosurgery, Division of Spinal Surgery, New York University - Langone Medical Center, 530 1st Avenue, Skirball Suite 8R, New York, NY 10016 USA.
authors.forename: Anthony K
authors.initials: AK
authors.lastname: Frempong-Boadu
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Rothman Institute, 2500 English Creek Avenue, Egg Harbor, NJ 08234 USA.
authors.forename: Kristen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Radcliff
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurosurgery, Duke University Medical Center, 200 Trent Drive #1l, Durham, NC 27710 USA.
authors.forename: Isaac
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Karikari
authors.affiliation: Division of Neurosurgery, Duke University Medical Center, 200 Trent Drive #1l, Durham, NC 27710 USA.
authors.forename: Robert
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Isaacs
keywords: fusion; low back pain; prognosis; surgery