Abstract: Background and Objective: The management of lumbar spinal stenosis by surgery has increased rapidly in the past two decades, however, the results are not uniform as reported by different users. Our aim was to investigate the effectiveness of surgery in the management of patients with lumbar spinal stenosis.
Materials and Methods: It is a prospective study which was carried out from August 2015 to January 2017 in MVJ Medical College and Research Hospital, Bengaluru. In this study period 30 patients of degenerative lumbar canal stenosis managed surgically (laminotomy, laminectomy and discectomy) were included after meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. JOA scoring system was used to assess the patient’s pre operatively and post operatively at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months and 6 months.
Recovery rate was calculated as described by Hirabayashi et al. (1981). Surgical outcomes was assessed based on the recovery rate and was classified using a four grade scale. Excellent, improvement of >90%; good, 75 – 89% improvement; fair, 50 – 74% improvement; poor, below 49% improvement.
Results: In our study, majority of the patients were males, at 6 months follow up 27% (n=8) patients showed excellent outcome, 57% (n=17) showed good outcome and 17% (n=5) showed fair outcome.
Conclusion: Operative management for lumbar spinal stenosis yields excellent results as observed on basis of JOA scoring system.
