A Narrative Review of Lumbar Fusion Surgery With Relevance to Chiropractic Practice

PMC full text:

Published online 2016 Oct 18. doi: 10.1016/j.jcm.2016.08.007

Copyright/License ►Request permission to reuse: Copyright © 2016 National University of Health Sciences.

Table 2

Levels of Medical Evidence for Therapeutic Study^a

Level	Therapeutic Study—Investigating the Effectiveness of Treatment
I	1. Well-designed randomized controlled trial with appropriate statistical analysis/reporting a. No major limitations b. No more than 1 minor limitation 2. Systematic review of well-designed randomized controlled trials with consistent findings
II	1. Prospective comparative study 2. Systematic review of Level II studies or review of Level I studies with inconsistent findings
III	1. Case-control studies 2. Retrospective comparative studies 3. Systematic review of Level III studies
IV	1. Case series
V	1. Expert opinion

^aData from Kaiser et al.¹³