Purpose The Core Outcome Measures Index (COMI) is a short, multidimensional outcome scale validated for the use by patients with spinal disorders. It is a recommended instrument in the Spine Society of Europe Spine Tango Registry. The purpose of this study was to produce a crossculturally adapted and validated Polish COMI. Methods The cross-cultural adaptation was carried out using the established guidelines. One-hundred and sixtynine patients with chronic low back pain were enrolled, 89 took part in the reproducibility part of the study.Data quality, construct validity and reproducibility were assessed. Results The quality of data was very good with very few missing answers and modest floor effect. Reliability expressed as intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was 0.90 (95 % CI 0.85-0.93) for the overall COMI score and for most of the individual core items. The minimum detectable change (MDC 95% ) was 1.79. Conclusions The Polish version of COMI showed a favorable reproducibility similar to that of previously tested language versions. The COMI scores correlated sufficiently with existing measures. This version of the COMI is a valuable instrument for the use by Polishspeaking patients with spinal disorders.Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article

The results of this study indicate that the Polish version of the ODI is a reliable and valid instrument for the measurement of disability in Polish-speaking patients with lower back pain.

Objectives Cervical disc arthroplasty (CDA) has become an alternative treatment for cervical radiculopathy and myelopathy. This technique preserves appropriate motion at both the index and adjacent disc levels and consequently may prevent adjacent segment degeneration (ASD). The authors performed a meta-analysis to compare the safety and efficacy of CDA to those of the gold standard, anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF). Both surgical and clinical parameters were employed to verify the hypothesis that CDA can reduce the risk of ASD. Methods The meta-analysis comprised high-quality randomized controlled trials that compared CDA and ACDF treatments of cervical degenerative disc disease. Included papers reported data for at least one of the following outcomes: 1) surgical parameters, 2) questionnaire clinical indices (pre- and postoperative values), and 3) complication rates at 24 months; in addition, for ASD we analyzed 60 month or longer follow-ups. We used mean differences (MDs) or ORs to compare treatment effects between CDA and ACDF. Results Twenty studies with 3,656 patients (2,140 with CDA and 1,516 with ACDF) met the inclusion criteria. CDA surgery, with mean duration longer than that of ACDF, was associated with higher blood loss. Visual analog scale neck pain score was significantly smaller for CDA (mean difference =−2.30, 95% CI [−3.72; −0.87], P =0.002). The frequency of dysphagia/dysphonia (OR =0.69, 95% CI [0.49; 0.98], P =0.04) as well as the long-term ASD rate for CDA was significantly smaller (OR =0.33, 95% CI [0.21; 0.50], P <0.0001). Conclusion A significantly lower probability of ASD reoperations in the CDA cohort after a 60-month or longer follow-up was the most important finding of this study. Despite the moderate quality of this evidence, the pooled data corroborated for the very first time that CDA was efficacious in preventing ASD.

The evidence based medicine (EBM) is becoming ever more popular among spinal surgeons. Unfortunately this is not always feasible. Lack of uniform guidelines and numerous conflicts of interest introduce flaws in the decision making process. The key role of experts and professional societies is to provide high value recommendation based on the most current literature. Present work contains a set of guidelines for the surgical treatment of HLD officially endorsed by the Polish Spine Surgery Society.

IntroductionThe purpose of this study was to provide a translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of the Polish language version of the pain sensitivity questionnaire (PSQ). The process followed widely accepted guidelines.MethodsThe translated questionnaire underwent thorough psychometric testing. In total, the data of 144 subjects (mean age 52.53±13 years), who underwent evaluation for lower back pain, were included.ResultsThe exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factor structure, PSQ-moderate and PSQ-minor. The internal consistency was good (Cronbach’s α was 0.96). There was a fair and significant correlation between the results of the PSQ and the coping strategy questionnaire (CSQ; Spearman’s rho was 0.27). The test-retest reliability was favorable, and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for the CSQ total was 0.93 with a mean interval of 9.04 days between administrations.ConclusionOur results show that the Polish version of the PSQ is valid and can be recommended for Polish-speaking patients.