Nakajima K, Nakamoto H, Kato S, et al. - A multicenter retrospective observational study was conducted to evaluate the impact of unintended dural tears (DTs) on postoperative patient-reported outcomes. Researchers included individuals who had undergone lumbar spine surgery at eight hospitals between April 2017 and November 2018. They obtained data regarding patients’ backgrounds, operative factors, the occurrence of unplanned DTs during surgery, postoperative complications, patient-reported outcomes, such as pain or dysesthesia of the lower back, buttock, leg, or plantar area, EuroQol 5 Dimension, Oswestry Disability Index scores, and postoperative satisfaction. Individuals were classified into a DT− group (without DTs) and a DT+ group (with DTs). They performed multivariate logistic regression analyses to demonstrate risk factors for the occurrence of DTs. They applied propensity score matching to obtain a matched DT− group (mDT− group) and a matched DT+ (mDT+ group). The Student's t test was applied to correlate continuous variables and Pearson's chi-square test for comparing categorical variables between the two groups. A total of 2,146 patients were enrolled in the study. Individuals with DTs exhibited almost equivalent postoperative outcomes in comparison with patients without DTs, although insufficient improvement of sensory disorder of the plantar area was observed,