Randomized controlled trials for degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis: which patients benefit from lumbar fusion?

atients with lumbar stenosis often suffer from symptoms of radiculopathy and claudication. If nonoperative measures, including physical therapy and epidural steroid injections, fail to control their symptoms, patients may be offered surgery. The majority of patients with lumbar stenosis do not have spondylolisthesis, and when these patients undergo surgical treatment, it is typically decompression alone, based on previously published guidelines. ome patients with lumbar stenosis also have spondylolisthesis, and this may be associated with a significant complaint of mechanical back pain. Patients with this constellation of findings may be offered lumbar decompression with or without fusion. Recently, conflicting studies have been published on the efficacy of decompression