Outcome Measures for Spinal Surgery

There are four general types of commonly used outcome measures: generic, disease specific, pain scales, and health utilities. Historically, generic, disease specific, and pain scales have been used as a means to quantify treatment outcomes. More recent literature has placed the focus on societal preference for evaluating medical treatment outcomes. The value of health utility scores derives from their ability to be converted to a standard measure across populations and diseases through utility weighting and in turn be used to determine cost utility or value. The future of spine surgery relies upon the community to generate comprehensive and valuable data that provides the appropriate information for clinical analysis.