Decompensation of degenerative lumbar stenosis: do patients need immediate surgery?

Abstract

Degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis (DLSS) represents an increasing challenge due to the aging population. The natural course of untreated DLSS is largely unknown. For the acute DLSS decompensations, the main concern remains the opportunity and timing of surgery, i.e. does emergency decompression improve the neurological prognosis? This question continues to be controversial, and we've tried to clarify it. We conducted a retrospective analysis of 85 consecutive patients who underwent surgery for decompensated DLSS between January 2020 and 2024. All patients presented with motor deficit (84.7%) and/or genital-sphincter dysfunction (25.9%). Surgical procedures included decompression alone (77.6%), decompression with discectomy (18.8%), or decompression with arthrodesis (3.5%). Complete neurological recovery was observed in 53 patients (62.4%) by the first follow-up visit (mean 4.6 months), while 32 patients (37.6%) had persistent neurological sequelae at final FU (mean 11.8 months). No significant association was found between neurological recovery and surgical timing, regardless of intervention within 48 h (p = 0.529), 7 days (p = 0.391), 15 days (p = 0.213), or 1 month (p = 0.435). Additionally, neither the degree of stenosis on MRI (p = 0.147), initial deficit severity (p = 0.06), patient age (p = 0.410), nor number of muscles involved (p = 0.328) were significantly associated with recovery. Our findings suggest that urgent surgical intervention for decompensated DLSS does not significantly improve neurological outcomes.