What’s This Research About?
There is a growing trend of medical professionals recognizing that there
is a large portion of the population that have anatomically degenerative
conditions in their body, but are asymptomatic. So is the presence of
degeneration a good warrant for surgical intervention? Should we consider
the degeneration “bad”, or should we start seeing it as normal and not running
after these people with a scalpel? These researchers searched the medical
databases to find the amount of asymptomatic people with degenerative
spinal conditions categorized out by age. The analysis was then going to be
used to serve as guidelines for surgeons as to when surgical intervention
might be advisable.
TITLE: Systematic Literature review of imaging features of spinal degeneration in asymptomatic populations.
PUBLICATION: American Journal of Neuroradiology
DATE: 2015
AUTHORS : W. Brinjikji, P Luetmer, B. Comstock, B.W. Bresnahan, L.E. Chen, R.A. Demo, S. Halabi, J.A. Turner, A.L Avins, K. James, J.T. Wald, D.F Kallmes, J.G. Jarvik.
Meta-analysis: Quantitative review of research results from multiple studies to derive conclusions on the collective body of research.
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