BACKGROUND: Back-related leg pain (BRLP) is often disabling and costly, and there is a paucity of research to guide its management. OBJECTIVE: To determine whether spinal manipulative therapy (SMT) plus home exercise and advice (HEA) compared with HEA alone reduces leg pain in the short and long term in adults with BRLP. DESIGN: Controlled pragmatic trial with allocation by minimization conducted from 2007 to 2011. (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00494065). SETTING: 2 research centers (Minnesota and Iowa). PATIENTS: Persons aged 21 years or older with BRLP for least 4 weeks. INTERVENTION: 12 weeks of SMT+HEA or HEA alone. MEASUREMENTS: The primary outcome was patient-rated BRLP at 12 and 52 weeks. Secondary outcomes were self-reported low back pain, disability, global improvement, satisfaction, medication use, and general health status at 12 and 52 weeks. Blinded objective tests were done at 12 weeks. RESULTS: Of the 192 enrolled patients, 191 (99%) provided follow-up data at 12 weeks and 179 (93%) at 52 weeks. For leg pain, SMT+HEA had a clinically important advantage over HEA (difference 10 per centage points (95% CI 2 to 19); p = 0.008) at 12 weeks but not at 52 weeks (difference 7 percentage points (CI -2 to 15); p = 0.146). Nearly all secondary outcomes improved more with SMT+HEA at 12 weeks, but only global improvement, satisfaction, and medication use had sustained improvements at 52 weeks. No serious treatment-related adverse events or deaths occurred. LIMITATION: Patients and providers could not be blinded. CONCLUSION: For patients with BRLP, SMT+HEA was more effective than HEA alone after 12 weeks, but the benefit was sustained only for some secondary outcomes at 52 weeks. PRIMARY FUNDING SOURCE: US Department of Health and Human Services.

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