Abstract
The subjects studied were 13 individuals who underwent the operations for degenerative spondylolisthesis more than 10 years ago. They included four males and nine females and their average age at the time of operation was 60.4 years. Their postoperative courses were investigated. Three of them underwent decompression alone, while 10 of them underwent postero-lateral fusion following decompression. The degree of improvement was evaluated according to JOA score and their average improvement rate was 55.1%. Eight individuals who showed appreciable improvement were classified as“excellent”or as“good.”The outcomes of operations depended on whether age-related conditions impairing ability to walk developed or not rather than the selection of surgical procedures. X-ray findings showed that the postoperative slip percentage increased by more than 5% in four cases. However there existed no relationship between the selected surgical procedure and increase in the postoperative slip percentage. After postero-lateral fusion, nearly half the patients suffered from the degeneration between neighboring vertebrae. This degeneration seemed to adversely affect the outcome of surgical treatment in some cases.
