Effects of Traditional Korean Medicine Treatment On Lumbar Spinal Stenosis and Assessing Improvement by Radiological Criteria: An Observational Study

Background This study was designed to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of traditional Korean medicine treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis as assessed by radiological criteria. Methods This was an observational study of 122 patients who were diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis and admitted to Jaseng Hospital between January 2016 and June 2017. They were analyzed according to sex, age, cause of disease, disease stage, length of admission, type of stenosis, morphological grade, and dural sac cross-sectional area. All patients were treated with traditional Korean medicine. Patients were assessed with the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) and EQ-5D before and after treatment. Results Regarding the distribution of the factors analyzed, these were of note: more females than males (1:3.52); and highest proportions were age more than 70 years (37.70%), cause of lumbar spinal stenosis unknown (67.21%), and subacute stage (42.62%). Comparing before and after treatment, the NRS score for low back and pelvic pain decreased from 6.14 ± 1.71 to 4.28 ± 1.91 (p < 0.001), and the NRS score for radiating pain and numbness decreased from 6.27 ± 1.61 to 2.02 ± 1.54 (p < 0.001). ODI decreased from 46.86 ± 19.40 to 33.63 ± 18.66 (p < 0.001), and gait-related ODI decreased from 3.34 ± 1.23 to 2.80 ± 1.11 (p < 0.001). There were no statistically significant differences in improvement of the NRS, ODI, gait-related ODI, and EQ-5D for morphological grade and dural sac cross-sectional area. Conclusions Traditional Korean medicine is effective treatment for patients with lumbar spinal stenosis. Even in patients with severe radiological findings, it is possible to reduce pain and improve quality of life.