Surgery, pills work for sciatica pain

Published: May 30, 2007 at 6:54 PM

BOSTON, May 30 (UPI) -- Leg and back pain from pressure on the sciatica nerve is about the same a year after conservative medical treatment or surgery, say U.S. doctors.

"The major advantage of early surgical treatment is faster relief of sciatica," said Wilco Peul, a neurosurgeon at the Leiden School of Medicine in the Netherlands.

Peul said that sciatica -- a radiating leg pain that can limit mobility -- usually is relieved with either surgical or non-surgical therapy.

In fact after a year of treatment, sciatica pain in the 283 patients in his trial was virtually very low and very similar in patients who had opted for early surgery, waited for surgery or never had surgery to correct the problem.

Writing for Thursday's editions of the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Peul said that there was a similar result when disability scores were compared, a sharp drop in dysfunction scores when the patients underwent surgical disc relief while those receiving medication had a more gradual decline in pain. Conservative therapy consisted of medication or physiotherapy.

By about six months after either treatment was initiated patients felt about the same, and functioned similarly. The improvement in relief endured through the end of the one-year clinical trial.

"Patients whose pain is controlled in a manner that is acceptable to them may decide to postpone surgery in the hope that it will not be necessary, without reducing chances for complete recovery in 12 months," Peul said. "Early surgery remains a valid treatment option for well-informed patients."

© 2007 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Order reprints



Additional News Stories
Kim leads in Ochoa Invitational (6 min)
COL BKB: Ohio State 72, James Madison 44 (10 min)
Rose leads season's final PGA Tour event (12 min)
Warhol painting sells for $43.7M (44 min)
Co-worker allegedly attacked over perfume (55 min)
Djokovic wins at Paribas Masters (57 min)
District halts cash-for-grades fundraiser
fark
Coming to a hipster douche near you: 1890s fashion. 'Cause nothing says "manly" like knee socks,...
Tennessee man found asleep in a ditch with a loaded rifle and a bottle of moonshine
If there are aliens on other worlds, did Jesus die for their sins, too? After all, every Gelgamek...
Murder suspect tells jury he has the cure for global warming, knows how to win in Afghanistan, and...
...and when they covered the Jews' cars in sticky-notes I said nothing, because I was not a Jew
Photoshop this barrier balancer