ReviewDecompression and coflex interlaminar stabilisation compared with conventional surgical procedures for lumbar spinal stenosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

- Coflex offers superior functional recovery for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS).
- Coflex showed less blood loss, shorter LOS and similar device-related complications than decompression plus fusion.
- Coflex was found to be effective and safe compared to decompression plus fusion for treatment of LSS.

BackgroundDecompression plus spinal fusion is one of the most common surgeries for the treatment of degenerative spine disease in older adults. However, complications caused by fusion surgery have been reported in some studies. Recently published studies have reported that coflex is a safe and viable option in the selection of instrumentation for spinal stabilisation. Our meta-analysis was conducted to investigate whether decompression and coflex results in better performance for lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) patients when compared with decompression and fusion surgery.MethodWeb of Science, PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library were comprehensively searched. Ten studies that compared coflex with fusion surgery were included in our meta-analysis. The PRISMA guidelines and Cochrane Handbook were applied to assess the quality of the results published in all included studies to ensure that the results of our meta-analysis were reliable and veritable.ResultsThe results of our meta-analysis showed that decompression and coflex was more effective than the control procedure in terms of the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), length of hospital stay (LOS) and blood loss. However, no significant difference was found in visual analogue scale (VAS) and major device-related complications.ConclusionsCompared with conventional decompression plus fusion surgery, coflex was not inferior in terms of functional clinical outcomes, including ODI and VAS pain score. Moreover, coflex showed less blood loss, shorter LOS and similar device-related complications compared to decompression plus fusion surgery. Therefore, the coflex interlaminar stabilisation device was found to be safe and effective compared to decompression plus fusion for the treatment of LSS.