More than 200,000 Medicare patients with back pain underwent $2 billion worth of unnecessary surgeries, including spinal fusion and/or laminectomy or vertebroplasty, over a recent 3-year period ...
New Hampshire, Iowa, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania had the highest overuse rates of spinal fusion/laminectomy ... is often the bigger determinant [of surgery] compared to what the evidence ...
“In spinal surgery, as with other fields of medicine ... including spinal fusion, laminectomy, and vertebroplasty, for which clinical trials have repeatedly shown lack of benefit for certain ...