Adverse Impact of Diabetes on Spine Fusion and Patient-Reported Outcomes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
STUDY DESIGN: Systematic review and meta-analysis. PURPOSE: This meta-analysis aimed to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of diabetes on spinal surgery outcomes. BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus is believed to be associated with an increased risk of adverse events during spinal surgery. With the increasing prevalence of diabetes and the increasing number of degenerative spinal procedures, understanding postsurgical expectations and optimal care is essential. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic search was conducted across PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, and the Cochrane Library, selecting studies comparing diabetes and those without diabetes who underwent spine fusion surgeries. Eighteen studies with 118,617 patients were included. The outcomes of interest were the risk of the incidence of spinal pseudoarthrosis and PROMs, including Visual Analog Scale (VAS), Oswestry Disability Index (ODI), EQ-5D, and SF-12/36 score. Odds ratios (OR) were calculated for dichotomous variables, mean differences (MD) for continuous variables, and standard mean differences (SMD) for continuous variables not sharing the same scale or units. Random effects were used if there was evidence of statistical heterogeneity. RESULTS: Eighteen studies, comprising 118,617 patients, were included in the final analysis. Diabetes patients had a higher incidence of pseudoarthrosis at the lumbar spine (OR: 1.13, 95% CI: 1.02 to 1.25, P < 0.05). Patients with diabetes also reported increased VAS back/neck pain scores (SMD: 0.21, 95% CI: 0.14 to 0.28, P < 0.001) and worse ODI outcomes (MD: 3.96, 95% CI: 3.10 to 4.82, P < 0.001), EQ-5D (MD: -0.06, 95% CI: -0.08 to -0.03, P < 0.001) and SF-12/36 scores (SMD: -2.70, 95% CI: -4.99 to -0.41, P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Patients with diabetes who underwent spinal surgery had a higher incidence of pseudoarthrosis and worse functional outcomes compared with nondiabetic patients. These findings underscore the need for targeted clinical management and preventive strategies for patients with diabetes undergoing these procedures. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Level III.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.022 | 0.046 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.017 | 0.050 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.007 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.004 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".