About this information

Information for the public

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health. One of NICE's roles is to produce guidance (recommendations) on whether interventional procedures are safe enough and work well enough to be used routinely in the NHS in England, Wales and Scotland.

This information describes the guidance that NICE has issued on a procedure called balloon kyphoplasty for vertebral compression fractures. It is not a complete description of what is involved in the procedure – the patient's healthcare team should describe it in detail.

NICE has looked at whether balloon kyphoplasty is safe enough and works well enough for it to be used routinely for the treatment of vertebral compression fractures.

To produce this guidance, NICE has:

looked at the results of studies on the safety of balloon kyphoplasty for vertebral compression fractures and how well it works
asked experts for their opinions
asked the views of the organisations that speak for the healthcare professionals and the patients and carers who will be affected by this guidance.

This guidance replaces the previous guidance on balloon kyphoplasty for vertebral compression fractures (which was interventional procedure guidance number 20). To produce this guidance, NICE undertook a review of all the published studies on balloon kyphoplasty for vertebral compression fractures.

This guidance is part of NICE's work on interventional procedures (see further information).