Report Casts New Doubts on Common Spinal Fracture Surgery

Each year, about 80,000 people in the United States undergo surgeries called vertebroplasties, which use surgical cement to strengthen cracks in the spine. The cracks are often the result of osteoporosis, the condition that causes thinning of the bones, and are most common in the elderly.

But a new report published this week in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine finds the popular surgeries are no more effective at reducing pain from cracks in the spine than doing nothing. The surgeries cost as much as $3,000, so they exactly come cheap, and the number of procedures performed has doubled since about 2003.

No Better than a Sham Operation

Studies conducted by the National Institutes of Health found that patients who actually had the spine-cementing surgery reported the same level of pain reduction and improved quality of life as patients in which surgeons only pretended to perform the procedure. In one study of 131 patients, 68 people actually received a vertebroplasty and 61 received a sham procedure in which physicians numbed the area and pressed on the spine as if they were actually administering the surgery.

Patients in both groups reported the same level of improvement and reduction of pain, leading researchers to conclude that the procedure is no better than a fake surgery. Australian researchers reported similar findings from an identical study of 71 patients.

Researchers said patients who underwent the sham spinal procedures may simply perceive that they are feeling less pain, believing they received an actual vertebroplasty. Still, don’t expect doctors to stop performing vertebroplasties anytime soon.

The surgeries have been proven effective at repair cracks in the spine and reducing back pain, even if it is no more effective than just pretending to perform the surgery, researchers said. However, some doctors said they will now tell their vertebroplasty patients before the surgery about the new research findings that the procedure may be no more effective than a sham surgery.

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