Study Finds Many Treatments for Back Pain Ineffective
/By Pat Anson, Editor
Lower back pain is the world’s leading cause of disability, affecting about 540 million people at any given time. With so many people suffering, you'd think there would be a consensus on the best way to treat or at least manage low back pain.
And you'd be wrong.
In a series of reviews appearing in The Lancet medical journal, an international team of researchers found that low back pain is usually treated with bad advice, inappropriate tests, risky surgeries and painkillers -- often against treatment guidelines.
“The majority of cases of low back pain respond to simple physical and psychological therapies that keep people active and enable them to stay at work,” says lead author Professor Rachelle Buchbinder of Monash University in Australia. “Often, however, it is more aggressive treatments of dubious benefit that are promoted and reimbursed.”
Buchbinder and her colleagues say low back pain is best managed in primary care, with the first line of treatment being education and advice to exercise, stay active and continue to work. Instead, a high number of low back pain patients are treated in emergency rooms, encouraged to rest and stop work, referred for scans or surgery, and prescribed painkillers.
“In many countries, painkillers that have limited positive effect are routinely prescribed for low back pain, with very little emphasis on interventions that are evidence based such as exercises," adds co-author Professor Nadine Foster of Keele University in the UK.
"As lower-income countries respond to this rapidly rising cause of disability, it is critical that they avoid the waste that these misguided practices entail."
Low back pain mostly affects adults of working age in lower socioeconomic groups. People with physically demanding jobs, physical and mental comorbidities, smokers, and obese individuals are at greatest risk of reporting low back pain.
Most people with new episodes of low back pain recover quickly, but recurrences are common. It’s also important to rule out more serious causes of back pain, such as cancer, arthritis and spinal fractures. In a small proportion of people, low back pain can become chronic and disabling.
The Lancet authors say patients should avoid harmful and useless treatments, and doctors need to address widespread misconceptions about their effectiveness. For example, there is limited evidence to support the use of opioids for low back pain, and epidural steroid injections and acetaminophen (paracetamol) are not recommended at all.
The authors recommend counseling, exercise and cognitive behavioral therapy as first-line treatments for short-term low back pain, followed by spinal manipulation, massage, acupuncture, meditation and yoga as second line treatments.
“Millions of people across the world are getting the wrong care for low back pain. Protection of the public from unproven or harmful approaches to managing low back pain requires that governments and health-care leaders tackle entrenched and counterproductive reimbursement strategies, vested interests, and financial and professional incentives that maintain the status quo,” said co-author Professor Jan Hartvigsen of University of Southern Denmark.
“Funders should pay only for high-value care, stop funding ineffective or harmful tests and treatments, and importantly intensify research into prevention, better tests and better treatments.”
The findings in The Lancet series are similar to those reported in other medical journals. A 2016 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that regular exercise and education reduce the risk of developing lower back pain by as much as 45 percent.
Another study in JAMA found that opioid medication provides only modest short-term relief for low back pain. Previous studies published in the British Medical Journal and The Lancet also found little evidence that acetaminophen was effective in treating low back pain.
