FRIDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Patients with diabetes who undergo surgery for spine problems experience less improvement compared to those without diabetes, according to research published in the Feb. 15 issue of Spine.
Mitchell K. Freedman, D.O., of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and colleagues conducted a secondary analysis of the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT) to examine the impact of diabetes on the outcomes of surgical and nonsurgical treatment of intervertebral disc herniation (IDH), spinal stenosis (SpS), and degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS). They compared characteristics, including pain and function, of 199 patients with diabetes to 2,405 patients without diabetes.
The researchers found that patients with diabetes with SpS and DS benefited from significant improvements in pain and function after surgery compared to those treated nonoperatively. Patients with diabetes and IDH who underwent surgery did not experience significant improvements in pain or function compared to those treated nonoperatively. Patients with diabetes and SpS had a higher postoperative complication rate compared to patients without diabetes. Patients with diabetes and concomitant DS had a greater need for intraoperative and postoperative blood replacement. The researchers noted that the patients with diabetes were older, had a higher body mass index, and more comorbid conditions.
"An understanding of the baseline differences between diabetic patients and nondiabetic patients in the SPORT trial may help to explain the larger treatment effects seen for nondiabetic patients across diagnostic groups, as well as the dichotomy in surgical outcomes between the diabetic patients with IDH and those with SpS and DS," the authors write.
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