Studies Question Using Cement for Spine Injuries

[steven johnson]

Two research studies call into question a common and expensive treatment for painful fractures in the spine -- vertebroplasty -- where acrylic cement is injected into collapsed vertebrae to reestablish their normal anatomy. Vertebroplasty gave no more pain relief than the control group in each of the studies. At $2,500 a pop, this is an expensive placebo.

A Treatment Challenged The treatment, vertebroplasty, injects an acrylic cement into bones in the spinal column to ease the pain from cracks caused by osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disorder common in older people. Doctors began performing it in this country in the 1990s, patients swore by it — some reporting immediate relief from terrible pain — and it soon caught on, without any rigorous trials to determine whether it really worked.

The new studies are exactly the kind of research that health policy experts and President Obama have been calling for, to find out if the nation is spending its health care dollars wisely, on treatments that work. A bill passed by Congress this year provides $1.1 billion for such so-called comparative effectiveness research.

The studies of vertebroplasty, being published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine, found it no better than a placebo. But it remains to be seen whether the findings will change medical practice, because they defy the common wisdom and challenge a popular treatment that many patients and doctors consider the only hope for a very painful condition.

The researchers prepared cement even during the sham procedure, so patients would smell it and imagine they were receiving it...The treated patients and the control group each had pain relief, but there was no difference between them.


Studies Question Using Cement for Spine Injuries

[hedgehog]

1. The health bills contain a proposal for a panel to gather and

disseminate exactly this kind of information. Similar subjects would be how to select the proper treatment for prostate cancer for a given patient taking into account age, life style, health and probable outcome and whether surgery is a good option for heart disease.

[chaplainM]

2. Snarky reference to Harry Reid in 3..2..1.. eom