Complications in Neck Surgery, Caused By an Unrestrained Spread of New Technology.
By Randall Pruitt, DC, DACNB, DAAPM, FACFN, MUAC, CES-NASM
I find it very ironic, that many spine doctors are skeptical about certain procedures, yet run with something unproven because it fits into their little specialty box. I see every day in my practice the poor people who’ve been caught in the trap of the current medical approach to back and neck pain. I can tell you with certainty that the typical treatment plan for back or neck pain includes the following; medication, physical therapy, spinal injection then surgery. That is as scientific as it gets, and you know what? This approach is a horrible failure.
Treatments like spinal decompression, manipulation under anesthesia and MedX spinal rehabilitation have all been proven more effective then any of those mentioned above, yet many pain sufferers know nothing about them. Why? Because their doctor was taught the above formula and breaking out of that paradigm is a difficult thing to do. It’s much easier to send a back pain patient elsewhere by writing a prescription, and let’s face it, most doctors don’t have time to educate themselves on the newest treatments on back pain, so they do what they’ve always done. Which is why we have a 90 billion dollar per year price tag on the treatment of back pain and more people are reporting severe functional limitations then ever.
Which brings me to the topic of this particular blog post, complications with neck surgery. You see very often new techniques or instruments are introduced into the spinal surgery world without adequate testing. For example two recent studies highlight this problem, referring to the inability of the current research and regulatory systems to monitor and restrain the spread of new technologies and avoid unnecessary safety problems related to their use. These two studies found significant growth in the use of bone-morphogenetic proteins (BMP’s) in spinal fusion surgery. And the rapid uptake of the new technology has led to a rash of complications related to their premature use in anterior cervical spine surgeries. In fact one of the studies found an approximately 50% higher complication rate after BMP use in anterior cervical fusion.
My point to all of this, is that technologies are used everyday in the spine world that unfortunately are unproven and even worse can lead to severe complications. Spinal decompression on the other hand, is safe and proven effective. It is beyond me why anyone would have spinal surgery without at least going through spinal decompression. My practice routinely saves patients from surgery and often gets people better after surgery has failed. So my advice, ask questions, look at the rationale behind treatments offered to you and look at the long term benefits as well as the potential complications.
