Commentary on: Quality-of-Life Evaluation of Patients Undergoing Lumbar Discectomy Using Short Form 36

Farzanegan et al. have presented an important and interesting study looking at the patient reported outcomes using the SF-36 after lumbar discectomy for low back pain (1). This is an important study because it uses patient reported outcomes to evaluate a common problem and a common intervention. In addition the SF-36 can now be used to evaluate any medical intervention and convert that change in to quality adjusted life years (QALYs). The use of QALYs allows comparison of the treatment benefit across different medical conditions. When combined with cost data, a cost per QALY can be determined. Given limited resources and nearly unlimited demands, this concept allows for the rationale allocation of medical resources in order to achieve the greatest benefit. Different societies and different health care systems will have different thresholds to determine what interventions are cost effective for them, but this is clearly the emerging trend.