The “Failed Back Surgery Syndrome”: A serious Public health concern
The July, 2004 of “The BackLetter” published by Lippincott contains the following inditement:
“The world of spinal medicine, unfortunately, is producing patients with failed back surgery syndrome at an alarming rate” (Vol. 12, No. 7, pp.79).
The validity of this declaration continues to be reinforced by an increasing chorus of voices from the health care communities including neurosurgeons and orthopedists. The key questions today are how this sad state of affairs came to be and how to best address this serious health care issue.
All spine surgery carries with it a significant degree of patient risk but when the resulting surgery does not alleviate the problem, or creates even greater problems for the patient, the situation is referred to as a “failed back surgery syndrome (FBSS).” In 1981 the Editor was a contributor to an international FBSS (Canada and the United States) study which was published in the peer reviewed journal “Clinical Orthopedics.” The authors pointed out that the first step in avoiding FBSS was the need to study the reasons why surgery failed and to endeavor to provide this information to surgeons and other physicians as an important means of promoting better patient care.
