Publications by authors named "Havard Furunes"
Importance: The ability of surgeons to choose the right patient for fusion in addition to decompression when operating for degenerative spondylolisthesis with symptomatic spinal stenosis is debated. The addition of fusion increases risk, morbidity, and costs but has been claimed to give better results for selected patients.
Objective: To investigate whether following surgeons' opinions regarding fusion was associated with clinical outcomes.
Objective: To assess whether decompression alone is non-inferior to decompression with instrumented fusion five years after primary surgery in patients with degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis.
Design: Five year follow-up of a randomised, multicentre, non-inferiority trial (Nordsten-DS).
Setting: 16 public orthopaedic and neurosurgical clinics in Norway.
Introduction: Surgery is widely recognised as the treatment of choice for suprasyndesmotic ankle fractures, because of the assumption that these injuries yield instability of the ankle joint. Stability assessment of ankle fractures using weightbearing radiographs is now used regularly to guide the treatment of transsyndesmotic and infrasyndesmotic ankle fractures. Patients with a congruent ankle joint on weightbearing radiographs can be treated non-operatively with excellent results.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground Context: Patients with spinal stenosis and degenerative spondylolisthesis are treated surgically with decompression alone or decompression with fusion. However, there is debate regarding which subgroups of patients may benefit from additional fusion.
Purpose: To investigate possible treatment effect modifiers and prognostic variables among patients operated for spinal stenosis and degenerative spondylolisthesis.
Importance: Operations for lumbar spinal stenosis is the most often performed surgical procedure in the adult lumbar spine. This study reports the clinical outcome of the 3 most commonly used minimally invasive posterior decompression techniques.
Objective: To compare the effectiveness of 3 minimally invasive posterior decompression techniques for lumbar spinal stenosis.
Study Design: A prospective study of patients originally randomized to total disc replacement (TDR) or multidisciplinary rehabilitation.
Objective: To assess the long-term development of facet arthropathy (FA) after TDR versus nonoperative treatment, and to analyze the association between FA and clinical outcome.
Summary Of Background Data: FA may appear or increase following TDR, but the natural course of FA is unclear, and no previous study has evaluated the long-term development of FA following TDR compared with nonoperative treatment.
Objective: To assess the reliability of lumbar facet arthropathy evaluation with computed tomography (CT) or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in patients with and without lumbar disc prosthesis and to estimate the reliability for individual CT and MRI findings indicating facet arthropathy.
Methods: Metal-artifact reducing CT and MRI protocols were performed at follow-up of 114 chronic back pain patients treated with (n = 66) or without (n = 48) lumbar disc prosthesis. Three experienced radiologists independently rated facet joint space narrowing, osteophyte/hypertrophy, erosions, subchondral cysts, and total grade facet arthropathy at each of the three lower lumbar levels on both CT and MRI, using Weishaupt et al's rating system.
Study Design: A randomized controlled multicenter trial with 8-year follow-up.
Objective: The aim of this study was to assess the long-term development of adjacent disc degeneration (ADD) after lumbar total disc replacement (TDR) or nonoperative treatment, and to analyze the association between ADD development and clinical outcome.
Summary Of Background Data: TDR was introduced as a motion-preserving alternative to spinal fusion, which has been reported to increase the risk of ADD.
Purpose: We aimed to identify patient characteristics associated with favourable long-term outcomes after lumbar total disc replacement (TDR).
Methods: We analysed a cohort of 82 patients with degenerative disc and chronic low back pain (LBP) who were treated with TDR and originally participated in a randomised trial comparing TDR and multidisciplinary rehabilitation. Potential predictors were measured at baseline, and the outcomes assessed 8 years after they received allocated treatment.
Background Context: Lumbar total disc replacement (TDR) is a treatment option for selected patients with chronic low back pain (LBP) that is non-responsive to conservative treatment. The long-term results of disc replacement compared with multidisciplinary rehabilitation (MDR) have not been reported previously.
Purpose: We aimed to assess the long-term relative efficacy of lumbar TDR compared with MDR.
Background: Patients with suspected scaphoid fractures usually have their arm immobilised in a cast for two weeks, even in the absence of radiographic signs of fracture. After two weeks a new radiographic examination is performed. Our objective was to assess the extent of unnecessary cast immobilisation and to describe existing diagnostic practice in our hospital.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In some countries, heroin is widely used as an analgesic agent.
Material And Methods: The literature describing the history, pharmacology and analgesic use of heroin was reviewed.
Results: Heroin is a semi-synthetic morphine derivative.