Spine
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Biography Historical Article
William Jason Mixter (1880-1958). Ushering in the "dynasty of the disc".
William Jason Mixter was born in 1880 and graduated from the Harvard Medical School class of 1906. Like his father, Mixter was a prominent surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and in 1911 the two shared the job of overseeing all neurosurgery at that institution. By the early 1930s, W. ⋯ That article fundamentally changed the popular understanding of sciatica at that time, and for this work Mixter is generally credited by his contemporaries as being the man who best clarified the relation between the intervertebral disc and sciatica. Mixter and Barr's landmark report helped to establish surgery's prominent role in the management of sciatica at the time. Over the next few decades, discectomy surgery increased in popularity tremendously, and some refer to that period as the "dynasty of the disc."
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Radiologic and operative findings of intravertebral cleft in the osteoporotic spine were investigated and the pathomechanism discussed. ⋯ The unstable cleft in the affected vertebral body of the osteoporotic spine with magnetic resonance findings of low intensity on the T1-weighted scans and high intensity on the T2-weighted scans suggests that the cleft is a false joint lined by fibrocartilaginous tissue with notable movement consistent with pseudarthrosis.
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In this anatomic study, the safety and accuracy of C1-C2 transarticular screw placement was tested in a normal anatomic situation in cadaver specimens using a specially designed aiming device. ⋯ This anatomic study demonstrates that C1-C2 transarticular screw fixation can be performed safely in a normal anatomic situation by surgeons who are familiar with the pertinent anatomy. The aiming device allowed safe instrumentation in all patients. In case of an irregular anatomic situation (e.g., congenital abnormalities or trauma), computed tomographic scan with sagittal reconstruction is recommended-in particular, to obtain information about the course of the vertebral artery.
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This prospective study consisted of mechanical stimulation of cervical nerve roots C4 to C8 in patients with cervical radicular symptoms undergoing diagnostic selective nerve root block. ⋯ The current study demonstrates a distinct difference between dynatomal and dermatomal maps.
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A cross-sectional postal survey of 29,424 people aged 12-41 years obtained from a population-generated panel of twin individuals. ⋯ There is a definite link between smoking and low back pain that increases with the duration and frequency of the low back pain problem, but this link is unlikely to be causal.