• Safwan Alomari, Daniel Lubelski, LoSheng-Fu LSLDepartment of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Meyer 5-109, Baltimore, MD, 21287, USA., Nicholas Theodore, Timothy Witham, Daniel Sciubba, and Ali Bydon.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 North Wolfe Street, Meyer 5-109, Baltimore, MD, 21287, USA.
• Eur Spine J. 2022 Sep 1; 31 (9): 2355-2361.

Background And ObjectiveComparative effectiveness research plays a vital role in health care delivery. Specialty training is one of these variables; surgeons who are trained in different specialties may have different outcomes performing the same procedure. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of spine surgeon specialty (neurosurgery vs orthopedic surgery) on early perioperative outcome measures of elective posterior spinal fusion (PSF) for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).MethodsThis is a retrospective, 1:4 propensity score-matched cohort study. 5520 AIS patients were reviewed from ACS-NSQIP pediatric database. Propensity score matching was utilized.ResultsPatients operated on by orthopedic surgeons were more likely to have shorter operation time (263 min vs 285 min), shorter total hospital stay (95 h vs 118 h), lower rate of return to operating room within the same admission (1.2% vs 3.8%), lower discharge rates after postoperative day 4 (23.8% vs 30.9%), and lower unplanned readmission rate (1.6% vs 4.1%), (p < 0.05). On the other hand, patients operated on by neurosurgeons had lower perioperative blood transfusion rate (62.1% vs 69.8%), (p < 0.05). Other outcome measures and mortality rates were not significantly different between the two cohorts.ConclusionsThis retrospective study found significant differences in early perioperative outcomes of patients undergoing PSF for AIS by neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons. Further studies are recommended to corroborate this finding which may trigger changes in the educational curriculum for neurosurgery residents.© 2022. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.

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