Abstract
Introduction
It is becoming increasingly more accepted that Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) should be used to assess surgical interventions. We report on a pilot study of a generic database with complete pre and post-operative data sets in a UK hospital.
Method
19 cases undergoing lumbar surgery in our institution were prospectively reviewed between January and August 2010. Pre and post–operative data assessing pain, back pain specific function, generic health, work disability and patient satisfaction were collected using a core outcome measures index, EuroQol EQ-5D and Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). Details of surgery and assessment of treatment outcome by the operating surgeon was also assessed.
Results
There were 11 males and 8 females. 8 cases were coded as disc herniation, and 11 as spinal stenosis. Levels involved included L3/4 (4), L4/5 (8) and L5/S1 (6). ASA status was 1 (4/19), 2 (12/19) and 3 (3/19). The median operation time for all operations was between 1-2 hours and blood loss was under 500ml for all cases. Complications recorded were one dural tear and one wound infection. Post operatively the COMI score improved from 8.7 to 7 overall (p=0.028) and the leg pain score improved from 8 to 7 overall (p=0.009). The EQ-5D improved from 0.09 to 0.36. The ODI improved from 60 to 40 (p=0.03). Patients reported being satisfied in 73% of cases and the surgeon reported a good or excellent result in 65% of cases.
Conclusion
The Spine Tango is an effective and user friendly tool for data collection. Data entry and extraction is easy. It is security enhanced and no Patient identifiable data (PID) is transferred outside the host institution.
Data retrieval can be done online with clear-cut graphs and data tables or by downloading data and importing into a statistical package for more complex, analyses.
