Racial Disparities in Outcomes After Spine Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

- OBJECTIVE: Racial disparities are a major issue in surgery outcomes is unclear. We conducted a systematic review/meta-analysis of disparities in outcomes among patients belonging to different racial groups who had undergone surgery for degenerative spine disease. inception to January 20, 2021 for relevant articles assessing outcomes after spine surgery stratified by race. We included studies that compared outcomes after spine surgery for degenerative disease among different racial groups. - RESULTS: We found 30 studies that met our inclusion criteria (28 articles and 2 published abstracts). We included data from 20 cohort studies in our meta-analysis (3,501,830 patients), which were assessed to have a high risk of observation/selection bias. Black patients had a 55% higher risk of dying after spine surgery compared with white patients (relative risk [RR], 1.55, 95% confipatients had a longer length of stay (mean difference, I2 = 89%), and 30-day readmission (RR, 1.45; 95% CI, 1.03rates.