[Sukhre]

One of the main issues, I find in deciding surgeries is the lack of data. Mc6 has been around from 2005. So there should do at least 100+ patients who has had this surgery for 9 or 10 years. There is no data to how these patients are doing. One of the reason is that there are privacy laws to protect patient privacy. Patients do not get any benefits from those laws ( like a patient information could be kept without name, date of birth or any identity... so there can be a map between a patient's identity to non-private data from which identity has been stripped out).

People used to believe that 90% or so fusion patients are doing really well. Dr. Pettine published a paper showing its around 60% or so who are doing really well. Propublica surgeon scorecard published complication rates of individual surgeons (its far from perfect), but it helps a lot.

Also statistics is used such an improper way. I have had these symptoms 14 years back. A surgeon told me that it could be my cervical discs. My PCP told me studies show physical therapy patients are doing better than patient who went through surgeries and he denied me to do an MRI. I had PPO insurance. I went to physical therapy and it hurt like crazy. He kept on saying its all in my head because I did not improve by physical therapy. The truth is I would be better off doing MRI, knowing where my problems were and live a life with precaution. Most surgeons know physical therapy might do worse for patients with stenosis.

Nothing should prevent FDA to collect data as in how many people had fusion/laminectomy/ADR, and what their current thoughts are. Would it be 100% fair? no. Say studies show 80% patients are happy with their surgery decision (like Mobic ADR 4 yr followup), it would be greatly helpful.