The Relationship Between the Chronic Low Back Pain and Cigarette Smoking Habits in Patients Treated with Conservative Therapy

Aim: of the study; this paper focus on the relationship between nicotine use and chronic lumbar back pain (CLBP). Any confirmation of the relationship between cigarette smoking and CLBP may help to educate patients on a healthy lifestyle for the prevention of the CLBP. Materials and Methods; This study is a cross-sectional observational study involving smokers and non-smokers patients with diagnosis of chronic low back pain (CLBP) , recruited during their initial neurosurgical consultation at the Neurosurgery Clinic in a time period of 6 months. All patients were followed for a minimum of 3 months after the start of conservative therapy. For each patient were collected age and gender, smoking habits, and the presence of any comorbidities. Pain severity and discomfort were evaluated using the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS), the DN4 questionnaire and the the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). Based on imaging (MRI of the lumbosacral spine), the diagnosis of disc herniation or vertebral lumbar stenosis was documented. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS Statistics software. A p-value of less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results; in this study the improvement of the CLBP after the same conservative therapy as documented by NRS and DN4 scales is better in patients with non smoking habits respect to patients with smoking habit (NRS scale 0.001 and DN4 scale 0.027). Conclusions the cigarette smoking habit have a rule in the onset and maintenance of the chronic lumbar back pain in patients with spinal degenerative disease.