Fads in the Treatment of Low Back Pain

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Abstract
The history of medical care for low back pain —one of the most common causes of morbidity and absenteeism in the United States — involves serial fashions in diagnosis and therapy. Earlier in this century, sacroiliac joint disease was thought to account for many cases of back pain, and this led to many fusions of the sacroiliac joint.1 Coccydynia was a popular diagnosis that led to a wave of coccygectomies, a procedure now almost completely abandoned.2 The use of chymopapain injections for herniated lumbar intervertebral disks enjoyed explosive growth in the early 1980s, but has declined greatly. Recent clinical trials . . .