Concomitant back pain as a predictor of outcome after single level lumbar micro-decompressive surgery - A study of 995 patients.

OBJECTIVE: To determine if preoperative leg pain and low back pain severity affected postoperative outcome. METHOD: Prospectively collected Spine-Tango data was analysed for 995 consecutive patients who underwent a primary, single level, lumbar micro-decompression/microdiscectomy at a single tertiary spinal centre. RESULT: At 3 months, 72% of patients were satisfied with the outcome of surgery. Pre-operative low back pain was a significant predictor of poor outcome (P < 0.01). CONCLUSION: Our study has shown that patients with a low back pain VAS of 6 or more have a significantly greater chance of a poor outcome following primary lumbar microdecompressive/microdiscectomy surgery.