Objectives: To identify criteria for predicting the outcome at discharge in patients scheduled for inhospital treatment of disk-related sciatica.
Patients and methods: We studied 150 rheumatology department patients admitted for disk-related sciatica with a mean duration of 88 +/- 127 days to determine the impact on treatment outcomes of 50 parameters.
Results: After complete bed and 2.2 +/- 1.1 epidural glucocorticoid injections during a mean hospital stay of 9.9 +/- 4.3 days, 80% of patients reported either complete or partial pain relief (19% and 61%, respectively). The remaining 20% reported little (9%) or no (11%) change. Surgery was performed in 13% of cases. A tighter straight-leg raising test angle was correlated with treatment failure (P = 0.01). Complete bed rest duration prior to admission was shorter in the 80% of responders (P = 0.036) than in the 20% of nonresponders; in the overall population, patients spent on average 64% +/- 33% of daytime hours in bed. Patient predictions about their own outcomes were unreliable (P = 0.926). Patients who believed strongly that sciatica requires surgical treatment were more likely to be nonresponders (P = 0.06), as were patients with a family history of surgically-treated sciatica (P = 0.055). Outcomes were not correlated with any of the other parameters studied, including sciatica duration (P = 0.13), bedrest duration prior to admission (P = 0.52; mean duration, 18 +/- 29 days), the specialty of the physicians seen, investigations done prior to admission, or a history of sciatica (noted in 65% of cases and treated surgically in 16%).
Conclusions: Eighty percent of patients benefited from their hospital stay. Patient opinions on the merits of nonsurgical and surgical treatments in their own case were not correlated with their own outcomes. A tight straight leg-raising test angle was correlated with a poorer outcome. Neither sciatica duration nor rest duration prior to admission had an influence on outcome. Absence of complete bed rest prior to admission was correlated with a greater likelihood of a therapeutic benefit from the hospital stay.