Research: How to avoid surgery with chiropractic care for specific conditions

Its comparative approach should be applied to future randomized, controlled trials, as well as to other common conditions in regard to how to avoid surgery for patients …

Chiropractic care can reduce the need for surgical intervention to treat low back pain and a number of other conditions. When patients ask how to avoid surgery, research shows chiropractic care as a viable first-treatment option before surgery.

We have all read studies that show this to be true for large groups of patients, as many of these studies use variables such as age, type of provider for initial care, or insurance status.^1-3 These types of studies provide general support of chiropractic as a whole, particularly as a viable alternative to standard medical care.

However, there are fewer articles examining the effect of chiropractic care for a specific condition on the need for more invasive procedures later on. Fortunately, the body of research for this type of associative comparison is growing and can serve as a valuable tool for treating patients. Let’s take a closer look at how such research can benefit patients, as well as a recent example.

Research on the effect of chiropractic care on later surgery

As mentioned previously, large studies that compare general chiropractic care to surgical treatment can prove the overall value of chiropractic, in terms of any number of measurements, depending upon the study design. Such evidence can bolster the general argument that chiropractic care should be seen as a viable treatment option to surgery for treating lower back pain.

In contrast, studies that examine the association between chiropractic care and surgical intervention for a specific health issue are smaller and often focused on outcomes. These studies can show how chiropractic care for a specific condition can reduce the need for surgical intervention later on. Although these studies use smaller cohorts, they allow for a direct association of outcomes between chiropractic and standard care on later surgery.

How to avoid surgery: the association between spinal manipulation and discectomy

A recent article published in the journal BMJ Open used this direct association method to examine outcomes from either spinal manipulation or standard care on the need for later surgical discectomy to treat lower back pain as a result of disc herniation or sciatica.⁴

Records for 11,570 patients, with newly diagnosed lumbar disc herniation or sciatica, were divided evenly into chiropractic or standard care cohorts. Those in the chiropractic care cohort were matched to those in the standard care cohort, according to variables that could influence the likely need for future surgery, such as age, sex, and weight.

At the end of one year, 1.5% of patients sorted into the chiropractic care cohort underwent surgical discectomy, as compared to 2.2% of patients in the standard care cohort. At the two-year follow-up point, 2.4% of patients receiving standard care required surgery, in contrast to only 1.9% patients who underwent chiropractic care.⁴

Although the findings from the BMJ Open study are promising, its comparative approach should be applied to future randomized, controlled trials, as well as to other common conditions in regard to how to avoid surgery for patients for which chiropractic care has been shown beneficial.

This comparative-outcome methodology can help predict potential outcomes for chiropractic care, not only in terms of patient outcome for specific conditions, but also provider costs, and fewer patients going under the knife as a first option to pain or injury.