(New York Magazine) – As much as half of all spinal fusions don’t alleviate pain — why do doctors perform so many?

Since it entered its first boom in the early 1990s, the field of spine surgery, and specifically spinal-fusion surgery, has faced criticism over lackluster outcomes, excessive procedures, and conflicts of interest. Throughout the last couple of decades, many studies have doubted the efficacy of fusion surgery in treating back pain caused by degeneration, and the number of revision operations for spine surgery is higher than those of other orthopedic surgeries. Despite that, rates of fusion surgery in the U.S. ballooned more than 200 percent throughout the 1990s, and the number of instrumented spine surgeries being performed annually has nearly doubled since 2013. There have never been as many spine surgeries as there are now and perhaps never so much mainstream conversation about them. In December, some speculated that complications from a spinal fusion is what led Luigi Mangione to allegedly execute the CEO of United Healthcare on a Manhattan street. (Read More)