Spine
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Retrospective review of articles published in the journal Spine. ⋯ Industry funded studies demonstrated a statistically greater likelihood to report positive results than studies with other funding sources. Potential explanations for this are biased study design, biased experimental technique, biased result interpretation, or publication bias. Although the expense of research and limited funding sources have forced an increased reliance on industry support for funding basic science and clinical spine research, this does introduce the potential for bias and must be recognized by the reader.
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Long-term effect of a combined exercise and motivational program on the level of disability of patients with chronic low back pain.
A prospective clinical randomized controlled trial. ⋯ Regarding long-term efficacy, the combined exercise and motivation program was superior to the standard exercise program. Five years after the supervised combined exercise and motivational program, patients had significant improvements in disability, pain intensity, and working ability.
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Comparative Study
Comparison of Healos/bone marrow to INFUSE(rhBMP-2/ACS) with a collagen-ceramic sponge bulking agent as graft substitutes for lumbar spine fusion.
A rabbit lumbar intertransverse process arthrodesis model was used to evaluate the efficacy of two different bone substitute materials: 1) collagen-hydroxyapatite sponge (Healos bone void filler) combined with heparinized bone marrow; and 2) recombinant human bone morphogenetic protein-2 delivered in a collagen sponge (INFUSE Bone Graft) wrapped around an additional collagen-ceramic sponge (Mastergraft Matrix) as a "bulking agent." ⋯ From the manual palpation, radiographic and biomechanical assessment of fusion, the results in this study showed that INFUSE (rhBMP-2/collagen sponge) consistently produced spine fusion when wrapped around a collagen-ceramic sponge bulking agent (Mastergraft Matrix). Meanwhile, Healos was ineffective as a bone graft material when combined with heparinized autogenous bone marrow.
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Cross-sectional analysis of analgesic use by patients with low back pain (LBP). ⋯ With this health plan, a high proportion of patients with LBP had claims for opioids during 2001. The use of opioids by patients with LBP represents a major cost for the health plan, and is associated with specific patient characteristics and their use of other LBP services.
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A prospective, interventional case series design. ⋯ In a sample of people from a Middle Eastern culture undergoing exercise intervention for LBP for which they are not receiving workers' compensation, the preintervention physical activity subscale of the FABQ is predictive of negative outcome when the observed scores are > or =29. Despite significant improvements in all variables after intervention, anticipated pain remained significantly higher than reported pain during physical performance testing but did not predict outcome.