[Radicular low back pain: is there a relationship between the treatment regimen and outcome?].

Objective: To identify a possible relationship between the non-surgical treatment regimen and outcome.

Methods: In a sample of 170 patients with sciatica due to a herniated disk the intensity of a conservative multimodal inpatient treatment in a neurological department was extracted. The outcome was examined using two prospective cohorts (183 patients). These results were compared with published data from orthopaedic inpatient rehabilitation in Germany.

Results: The neurological inpatient treatment regimen was more intense than the orthopaedic inpatient rehabilitation, especially with regard to physiotherapy. In contrast, physical therapy was applied more often in orthopaedic rehabilitation. A better short-term outcome with regard to pain intensity was found after multimodal conservative treatment.

Conclusions: Further studies are needed to compare different treatment regimens in patients with sciatica.