Study design: Lumbar spine stenosis is a common cause of lower back pain and lower extremity pain especially in people over 60-years-old. Treatment can be surgical or non-surgical. The efficacy of these treatments remains unclear. The purpose of this study was to assess the result of a medical management in a prospective study. Preliminary results are presented.
Patients and methods: Patients following the clinical and the radiological criteria of inclusion were included in the study. Pain was assessed by visual analogic scale (VAS) and Oswestry scale. Sixty patients meeting inclusion criteria underwent non-surgical intervention including therapeutic exercises and 2 epidural injections. Patients were followed up at 3 and 6 months.
Results: The main score on VAS was 5.2 for lumbar pain, 5.8 for radicular pain and 21/50 on the Oswestry scale. Three months later an improvement was noticed in 12 cases. Thirty-seven patients remained unchanged and surgery was decided for 11 patients. At 6 months an improvement was reported by 47% of the patients who have been managed by conservative treatment. No predictive factor except VAS was noticed.
Discussion: Our results are inferior to those previously reported. Most of previous studies are retrospective and criteria of assessment are not based on functional scale as we done. The fact that the treatment management was ambulatory without supervision is probably the main explanation.
Conclusion: Conservative treatment for spinal lumbar stenosis remains a reasonable option.