Spine Degenerative Conditions and Their Treatments: National Trends in the United States of America:

Study Design:Retrospective database study.Objective:Low back and neck pain are among the top leading causes of disability worldwide. The aim of our study was to report the current trends on spine degenerative disorders and their treatments.Methods:Patients diagnosed with lumbar or cervical spine conditions within the orthopedic subset of Medicare and Humana databases (PearlDiver). From the initial cohorts we identified subgroups based on the treatment: fusion or nonoperative within 1 year from diagnosis. Poisson regression was used to determine demographic differences in diagnosis and treatment approaches.Results:Within the Medicare database there were 6 206 578 patients diagnosed with lumbar and 3 156 215 patients diagnosed with cervical degenerative conditions between 2006 and 2012, representing a 16.5% (lumbar) decrease and 11% (cervical) increase in the number of diagnosed patients. There was an increase of 18.5% in the incidence of fusion among lumbar patients. For the Humana data sets there were 1 1...