Conservative Equals Surgical Management of Lumbar Spinal Stenosis Save

A randomized controlled trial of compared the outcomes of  surgical decompression or physical therapy in 169 lumbar spinal stenosis patients.  After two years, intention-to-treat analyses revealed no difference between groups. Sensitivity analyses using causal-effects methods to account for the high proportion of crossovers from PT to surgery (57%) showed no significant differences in physical function between groups. From these data, it is unclear which patients would be ideal surgical candidates.