About this Research Topic
Degenerative spine conditions (e.g., spinal stenosis and herniated discs) are common in adults, especially in the elder. Some patients could have symptoms, such as pain and numbness. Sometimes, bladder incontinence or sexual dysfunction could occur, which seriously affect the patient's life quality. Surgical interventions are widely used although the current evidence is not valid. There are many existing surgical methods, but we did not know which one should be preferred. On the other hand, surgical management might not be better than conservative care in some kinds of degenerative spine conditions. Degenerative spine conditions are heterogeneous, which might need personalized treatments considering each patient’s characteristics.
To better understand the role of surgical management for degenerative spine conditions, we have the following goals:
1. Understand which kind of surgical interventions are currently used. How the use of surgical interventions changes with time? Is there any difference between different countries, especially low-income countries versus high-income countries?
2. Explore the right situation to perform surgery. Why did some patients not get satisfactory results after surgery? Does any subgroup benefit more?
3. Find out the optimal surgical intervention or suitable one for one specific situation.
4. Find out the factors which could provide prognostic information for patients who received surgery or build clinical predictive models for the outcome following surgery.
5. Explore potential personalized treatments based on patients’ baseline characteristics.
Specific themes we would like contributors to address include, but are not limited to:
• Randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews with/without meta-analysis to compare two different surgical inventions or one surgical intervention versus one kind of conservative care.
• Observational studies: 1. To describe status or trend for surgical management; 2. For the outcome following surgery, to explore prognostic factors, develop and/or validate predictive models; 3. To explore potential personalized treatments, especially for patients with multiple spine conditions or severe chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes and cardiovascular disease).
• Studies that use advanced statistical modelling or machine learning technologies will be preferred.
• Studies which focus on the elder, use national-level registries or cohort with long-term follow-up will be preferred.
• Any kind of degenerative spine conditions will be accepted.
To better understand the role of surgical management for degenerative spine conditions, we have the following goals:
1. Understand which kind of surgical interventions are currently used. How the use of surgical interventions changes with time? Is there any difference between different countries, especially low-income countries versus high-income countries?
2. Explore the right situation to perform surgery. Why did some patients not get satisfactory results after surgery? Does any subgroup benefit more?
3. Find out the optimal surgical intervention or suitable one for one specific situation.
4. Find out the factors which could provide prognostic information for patients who received surgery or build clinical predictive models for the outcome following surgery.
5. Explore potential personalized treatments based on patients’ baseline characteristics.
Specific themes we would like contributors to address include, but are not limited to:
• Randomized controlled trials or systematic reviews with/without meta-analysis to compare two different surgical inventions or one surgical intervention versus one kind of conservative care.
• Observational studies: 1. To describe status or trend for surgical management; 2. For the outcome following surgery, to explore prognostic factors, develop and/or validate predictive models; 3. To explore potential personalized treatments, especially for patients with multiple spine conditions or severe chronic diseases (e.g., diabetes and cardiovascular disease).
• Studies that use advanced statistical modelling or machine learning technologies will be preferred.
• Studies which focus on the elder, use national-level registries or cohort with long-term follow-up will be preferred.
• Any kind of degenerative spine conditions will be accepted.
Keywords: degenerative spine conditions, spine, surgery, evidence-based, statistical modeling, machine learning
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
