By Andrew Cappuccino, MD, FACS, FAAOS ORTHOPEDICS 2008; 31:243 In this issue of Orthopedics, Dr Andrew Cappuccino, assistant team orthopedic surgeon for the NFL Buffalo Bills and the supervising and operating surgeon of Bills player Kevin Everett, discusses the use of moderate systemic hypothermia to treat spinal cord injuries. Please explain moderate hypothermia …
VIENNA – With few thrombotic events being reported in the literature following spine surgery, Austrian investigators found some benefits to postoperative administration of a low-molecular-weight-heparin subcutaneously the night after spine surgery and up to 4 weeks afterward in their prospective 150-patient controlled cohort study. During the 2010 Annual Congress of the Spine …
PHILADELPHIA — Surgical treatment for cases of mild to severe cervical spondylitic myelopathy has shown objective improvements in generic and disease-specific health outcomes in a large prospective clinical study presented here. “Cervical spondylotic myelopathy is the most common cause of spinal cord impairment, and a significant cause of morbidity,” Michael G. Fehlings, MD, PhD, …
Introduction Cement injection into acute or subacute vertebral compression fractures has increased in popularity in recent years. There are many anecdotal accounts of bedridden patients being able to walk off the procedure table following such injections. Prospective randomized studies, while hard to design properly and execute, are underway and beginning to be …
by Charles Sorbie, MB, ChB, FRCS(E), FRCS(C) High-dose steroid treatment given for acute brain and spinal cord injuries needs careful consideration of its risks. A case described by Tsao et al (Lancet. 2009; 374[9688]:500) had only one warning signal for risk, mild anemia. A 37-year-old woman was admitted with a …
Patients in two IDE studies had vertebroplasty or kyphoplasty with synthetic bone not PMMA. by Susan M. Rapp A bioceramic material used in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures to augment vertebral compression fractures proved safe and effective at up to 3 years follow-up, investigators said. At the International Society for the …
At one year postop TDR improved flexion/extension while fusion restricted motion. by Susan M. Rapp The motion-sparing advantages offered by a semiconstrained total disc prosthesis make it a promising alternative to discectomy and fusion for treating cervical spondylosis and degenerative disc disease based on results presented at the North American …
Enhance stabilization with structural allografts to offset rapid graft resorption risks. by Kathleen Ogle Using rhBMP-2 along with adequate stabilization yields better fusion rates in the anterior cervical spine than those likely without the protein, a new study shows. But without added stabilization, surgeons run the risk that “aggressive graft …