Cost-utility of lumbar decompression with or without fusion for patients with symptomatic degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis.

Background Context: The most common surgical treatment of symptomatic degenerative lumbar spondylolisthesis (DLS) is decompression and instrumented fusion. However, contemporary, midline-sparing, microdecompressive techniques have shown good results for selected patients with stable Grade 1 DLS. Growing concerns over the rising cost and rates of spinal fusion warrant both clinical and economic comparative effectiveness research in this common spinal diagnosis.