ABSTRACT

Failed back surgery syndrome is named for the patients who had been operated once or more for back surgery and not had a success for improvement of back or radicular leg pain. The spine surgeons are frequently faced with this problem. The most known reasons are misdiagnosis, operation for wrong level and insufficient surgery. The follow up tests for diagnosis are lomber x-ray, computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging and electrophysiologic studies. The management of treatment gain importance because of complex etiology of syndrome. The psychosocial status of patients should be evaluated carefully and in the presence of surgical pathology, the problem should be solved primarily with surgical intervention. However an alternative treatment can be spinal cord stimulation in presence of problems which are not treated with surgery. Finally multidiscipliner cooperation is important in treatment of failed back surgery syndrome and economical decrement due to treatment should be kept in mind.