Abstract
Surgical results over 3 years of two groups treated by one surgeon decompression only or decompression with spinal fusion for lumbar degenerative spondylolisthesis were investigated.The decompression group consisted of 53 patients with an average age of 69.4 years and a follow-up period of 56 months, while the fusion group were 11 patients with an average age of 64.9 years and a follow-up period were 55 months. In the former JOA scores improved from 6.5 to 13.1 and in the later the improvement from 6.1 to 14.4 was observed. The low back pain scores improved from 1.6 to 2.7 in the decompression group and from 1.1 to 2.7 in the fusion group. These results suggest that the necessity of spinal fusion for degenerative spondylolisthesis is quite limited. In the decompression group , 5 cases who affected by compression fractures in the follow-up period or presented degenerative kyphosis or severe degenerative scoliosis showed poor result at final study.
