Long-term outcome of fusion for degenerative disc disease in the lumbar spine.

Aims: Chronic low back pain due to degenerative disc disease is sometimes treated with fusion. We compared the outcome of three different fusion techniques in the Swedish Spine Register: noninstrumented posterolateral fusion (PLF), instrumented posterolateral fusion (IPLF), and interbody fusion (IBF).

Patients And Methods: A total of 2874 patients who were operated on at one or two lumbar levels were followed for a mean of 9.