Introduction Lumbar fusion is a commonly performed procedure for various spine conditions, including spondylolisthesis, degenerative disk disease, dynamic instability, or lumbar spondylosis. Despite numerous studies, significant debate remains regarding the most effective surgical technique for lumbar fusion. Specifically, use of…
Summary of Key Points The randomized controlled trial (RCT) is the gold standard in evidence-based medicine. Surgical RCTs can be affected by several types of bias, including informational bias, which occurs owing to a lack of blinding, and response bias,…
Clinical Vignette A 53-year-old man had a history of occasional severe episodes of low back pain radiating down his buttock and posterior left thigh; it had begun with an athletic injury at age 17. Typically he experienced exacerbations, which lasted…
Clinical Vignette A 42-year-old woman presented with a 2-week history of increasingly severe neck pain with radiation to the back of her right upper arm. In retrospect she had developed acute right medial scapular pain 4 weeks earlier after carrying…