American Pain Society's low back guideline expanded to cover interventional ...( TAMPA May 10 2008 - For low-back pai...),Health

TAMPA, May 10, 2008 - For low-back pain patients and their doctors, the American Pain Society, www.ampainsoc.org, said today it is expanding its evidence-based, clinical practice guideline on diagnosis and treatment of chronic low back pain to include recommendations on surgery and other interventional treatments. The expanded guideline was previewed today in a symposium at the APS Annual Scientific Meeting.

The second part of the APS guideline is based on a multidisciplinary panels review and analysis of volumes of evidence related to diagnosis and treatment of low-back pain with a number of interventional procedures and surgeries, according to Roger Chou, MD, director of the American Pain Societys Clinical Practice Guideline Program and associate professor of internal medicine, Oregon Health & Science University.

Chou noted that in addition to the multidisciplinary panel that formulated the guideline for evaluation and management of low back pain in primary care settings, additional experts with expertise on interventional therapies and surgeries for low back pain were recruited to review the evidence and formulate the expanded recommendations.

"Prior to finalizing the guideline, APS conducts extensive peer review, and has sent the guideline to more than 20 experts in surgery, interventional pain medicine, primary care, and other disciplines for comments and feedback," Chou said.

Low-back pain is the fifth most common reason for doctors office visits and one in four adults report having it last a least a day. Annually, low-back pain is estimated to account for more than $26 billion in direct health care costs in the U.S.

"The evidence is much better than even five or 10 years ago and both the primary care and interventional recommendations will help physicians be more confident when evaluating possible therapies for low back pain," said Chou. "As always, physicians a
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