Mid- to long-term natural history of degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis and predictors for clinical deterioration

Patients with lumbar stenosis and neurogenic claudication mostly remained ambulatory without developing motor deficits or sphincter dysfunction. Conservative management is an option for patients with tolerable symptomatology and low functional expectations, especially in the absence of the identified risk factors of developmental narrowing of lumbar canal dimensions and critically reduced dural sac area over the most stenotic level.