BACKGROUND The incidence of wound infections associated with instrumented spine surgery ranges from 2 to 20%. These complications may lead to poor outcomes. Knowing the risk factors associated with surgical site infections (SSI) after utilizing spinal implants is essential to avoid these complications, including hardware removal. METHODS We reviewed retrospectively 550 patients who underwent ...

STUDY DESIGN A retrospective clinical study. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the clinical efficacy of the surgical treatment of noncontiguous spinal tuberculosis (NSTB), and to discuss its therapeutic strategies. METHODS We performed a retrospective review of clinical and radiographic data that were prospectively collected on 550 consecutive spinal tubercular patients including 27 patients who were d...

BACKGROUND Removal of instrumentation is often recommended as part of treatment for spinal infections, but studies have reported eradication of infection even with instrumentation retention by using serial débridements and adjuvant antibiotic pharmacotherapy. We sought to determine the effect of instrumentation retention or removal on outcomes in children with spinal infections. METHODS We re...

Harrington rod instrumentation with spinal fusion has proven to be of great value in correcting idiopathic scoliosis-which is not only physically unattractive but a cardiorespiratory crippler as well. The author details the preand intra-operative anesthetic considerations necessary for these cases, emphasizing such areas as positioning, fluid and blood replacement, and obtaining adequate muscle...

Posterior spinal instrumentation and fusion surgery in school-aged children and adolescents is associated with the potential for massive intraoperative blood loss, which requires significant allogeneic blood transfusion. Until now, the intraoperative use of the cell saver has been extensively adopted; however, its efficacy and cost-effectiveness have not been well established. Therefore, the ai...

UNLABELLED BACKGROUND A large variability in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) correction objectives and instrumentation strategies was documented. The hypothesis was that different correction objectives will lead to different instrumentation strategies. The objective of this study was to develop a numerical model to optimize the instrumentation configurations under given correction obje...

BACKGROUND A loss of reduction due to inadequate support of the anterior column when using short-segment instrumentation to treat burst fracture and novel methods for support of the anterior column through a posterior approach to augment posterior instrumentation have been reported in the literature. We hypothesized that if anterior column support is an important adjunct to posterior short-segm...

Introduction. Paraplegia and kyphotic deformity are two major disease-related problems of spinal tuberculosis, especially in the early age disease. In this study a 2-year-old boy who underwent surgical decompression, correction, and 360° instrumented fusion via simultaneous anterior-posterior technique for Pott's disease was reported. Case Report. A 2-year-and-9-month-old boy presented with sev...

STUDY DESIGN A prospective randomized and blinded comparative study of 2 patient groups with >5-year follow-up. OBJECTIVE To compare the clinical outcomes and postoperative posterior muscle changes in patients with advanced degenerative disk disease undergoing 2-level circumferential spinal fusion using a posterior midline versus a paraspinal approach. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA Lumbar spin...

Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is mostly caused by osteoarthritis (spondylosis). Clinically, the symptoms of patients with LSS can be categorized into two groups; regional (low back pain, stiffness, and so on) or radicular (spinal stenosis mainly presenting as neurogenic claudication). Both of these symptoms usually improve with appropriate conservative treatment, but in refractory cases, surgica...