Vertebroplasty helps reduce acute pain in patients with osteoporotic fractures

A study published in The Lancet shows that vertebroplasty  is a safe and effective procedure that can reduce acute pain and disability within six weeks in patients with spinal fractures.During this procedure, a special bone cement is injected into the fractured vertebrae to stabilize the fracture and relieve pressure on the patient.

The study also found that patients who had vertebroplasty had a 5.5-day reduction in hospital stay.

The study from Australia, "Safety and effectiveness of vertebroplasty for acute painful osteoporotic fractures (VAPOUR): a multicenter, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trial," considered 120 patients. Sixty-one patients were randomly assigned to the vertebroplasty group and 59 to the placebo group. Only patients with severe pain level 7 or higher on a numeric rating scale (NRS) of 10 were included.

After 14 days of treatment, 23% of patients in the vertebroplasty group reported NRS pain below 4. While 53% of patients in the placebo group still had moderate or severe pain 6 months after surgery, patients in the vertebroplasty group reported complete pain relief after the surgery.

Nearly 1.4 million people worldwide suffer fractures due to osteoporosis. While many people experience mild symptoms, some develop severe pain and disability, requiring hospitalization.

Vertebroplasty can help them manage pain and reduce hospital stays, saving overall health care costs. Additionally, studies have found that the procedure does not lead to future fractures, as is sometimes thought.

"These findings are important because, for the first time, vertebroplasty has been shown to reduce pain more effectively than sham surgery," said Dr. Joshua Hirsch, past president of the Society for Neurointerventional Surgery and author of a peer-reviewed expert review in The Lancet. . "Furthermore, this trial demonstrates that conservative treatment, including anesthesia, bed rest, and back bracing, is not inherently risk-free. In fact, in previous open-label trials such as VERTOS 2, vertebroplasty was significantly better than Conservative treatment

Source: Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery