New Research Questions Need For Some Common Surgeries:
After years of excruciating sinus infections, Susan Doyno decided to have surgery. After two separate procedures, not only did the infections persist but she also developed headaches and blood clots.So she consulted a third sinus surgeon, who reviewed her case history and offered a startling diagnosis: “Surgery has likely caused much of her problems,” says the doctor, Robert Pincus of the New York Sinus Center.
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It used to be, for example, that someone who suffered a liver or kidney injury in a car accident had the organ removed. Now in nearly all cases, the patient is tracked but not operated on — and most of the time, recovery occurs naturally.
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Donlin Long, a neurosurgery professor at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore, followed 3,000 patients with severe back and leg pain for two years during the late 1990s. The longstanding approach to treating that problem has been to give patients two weeks to feel better; if they don’t improve, then the doctor operates. But the study pointed out flaws in that approach: In 86% of the cases, the patients got better on their own, but it took between one and three months to get there. “The longer you wait, the better chance the patient will recover without any surgery at all,” Dr. Long says.