OBJECTIVE: to determine the surgical decision making variation in five degenerative lumbar spine clinical situations. Determine whether factor related to spinal surgeon training program, experience and age are determinants in surgical decision making for each case. METHODS: ten orthopedists and ten neurosurgeons from different ages were questioned about surgery indication, approach options, need for decompression, need for fusion with instrumentation or not for five degenerative lumbar spinal clinical scenarios. Information about history, examination and image studies (all examiners had the same information and oriented to answer thinking in their own experience). Cases presented: instability and disc disease in a Young patient; extruded lumbar hérnia in a young patient; multiple level spinal stenosis without deformity; multiple spinal stenosis with degenerative kyphoscoliosis; lumbar hernia with facet degeneration. Effects on training background and surgeon mean age on surgical decision making were analyzed using Student "t" test (p<0.05). RESULTS: mean age was 42.15 years (varying 29 to 56 years). Twelve (60%) participants were from Sao Paulo while resting eight (40%) were from other states. Significative variation was not observed. In a general manner, orthopedists recommend fusion and instrumentation more often then neurosurgeons, reaching significance for degenerative scoliosis with spinal stenosis (p=0.04) and for lumbar hernia (p=0.01). Experienced surgeons were more likely to recommend instrumentations than younger for spinal stenosis and instability without deformity (p=0.001). CONCLUSION: there is a great agreement about surgeon's preferences, resting differences in orthopedists preference for instrumentation for lumbar disc herniation cases and treatment of the deformity for degenerative scoliosis with spinal stenosis case. Surgeon's age and experience were not determinant in surgical decision making. Actually there is a growing uniformization in spinal surgeon training programs with a few differences inherent to basic training for orthopedists and neurosurgeons.
Spinal fusion; Spine; Scoliosis; Intervertebral disc displacement; Spinal disease
