Spine
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Between 1981 and 1990, twenty-two patients with incomplete neurologic deficits after thoracolumbar junction fractures were treated by anterior decompression and stabilization. Two patients were unavailable for follow-up examination, eleven underwent spinal canal decompression within 48 hours of injury (Group A); and nine patients underwent surgical decompression in an average of 61 days after injury (Group B). Neurologic recovery was analyzed by a modified Frankel grading system, the ASIA motor point scale and conus medullaris function. ⋯ None of the six patients with conus medullaris injuries showed complete improvement in bladder or bowel function postoperatively. The modified Frankel grade and ASIA motor point score improvements were significant when the two groups were compared (P less than 0.04 and P less than 0.01, respectively). In this series of patients, early anterior decompression for traumatic injuries at the thoracolumbar junction was associated with improved rates of neurologic recovery when compared to late decompression.
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Large administrative databases are increasingly valuable tools for health care research. Although increased access to these databases provides valuable opportunities to study health care utilization, costs and outcomes and valid and comparable results require explicit and consistent analytic methods. Algorithms for identifying surgical and nonsurgical hospitalizations for "mechanical" low back problems in automated databases are described. ⋯ Twenty-seven diagnosis and two procedure codes identify hospitalizations for problems definitely in the lumbar or lumbosacral region. Exclusion criteria were developed to eliminate nonmechanical causes of low back pain, such as malignancies, infections, and major trauma. The use of the algorithms is illustrated using national hospital discharge data.
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Intraoperative technical complications of pedicle screw fixation include screw cutout or maldirection and pedicle fracture. The aims of this study were 1) to use computed tomography to determine the average pedicle diameter; and 2) to compare these measurements with the outer diameter measurements of commonly used pedicle screws. The pedicle diameters of L2, L3, L4, L5, and S1 were measured in 154 adult patients (81 men, 73 women) who had low-back pain. ⋯ Twenty percent of the L2 pedicle diameters, 15.6% of L3, and 1.9% of L4 were less than 7 mm; none of the L5 or S1 pedicles measured less than 7 mm. The outer diameters of the most commonly used pedicle screws range from 5 mm to 7 mm. Screw pitch, tooth profile, outer diameter, and depth of penetration affect implant strength.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)