The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society
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Frailty has been associated with inferior surgical outcomes in various fields of spinal surgery. With increasing healthcare costs, hospital length of stay (LOS) and unplanned readmissions have emerged as clinical proxies reflecting overall value of care. However, there is a paucity of data assessing the impact that baseline frailty has on quality of care in patients with spondylolisthesis. ⋯ Our study indicates that frailty, as measured by the mFI, does not significantly predict LOS, 30-day adverse events, or 30-day unplanned readmission in patients undergoing lumbar spinal decompression and fusion for spondylolisthesis. Further work is needed to better define variable inputs that make up frailty to optimize surgical outcome prediction tools that impact the value of care.
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Sacral tumors are incredibly rare lesions affecting fewer than one in every 10,000 persons. Reported perioperative morbidity rates range widely, varying from 30% to 70%, due to the relatively low volumes seen by most centers. Factors affecting perioperative outcome following sacrectomy remain ill-defined. ⋯ Clinical and operative factors were important predictors of complications and 30-day readmission, while tumor-related and operative factors accounted for most of the variability in length of stay and non-home discharge.
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Best practices in opioid prescribing after elective surgery have been developed for most surgical subspecialties, including spine. However, some percentage of patients will become chronic users. ⋯ For opioid-naïve patients, surgeons can prescribe lower amounts of opioids after elective surgery for degenerative spinal disease without concern of increased need for refills.
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Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) evidence-based protocols for perioperative care have led to improvements in outcomes in numerous surgical areas, through multimodal optimization of patient pathway, reduction of complications, improved patient experience and reduction in the length of stay. ERAS represent a relatively new paradigm in spine surgery. ⋯ Based on the best evidence available for each ERAS item within the multidisciplinary perioperative care pathways, the ERAS® Society presents this comprehensive consensus review for perioperative care in lumbar fusion.
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Correction of adult spinal deformity (ASD) by long segment instrumented spinal fusion is an increasingly common surgical intervention. However, it is associated with high rates of complications and revision surgery, especially in the elderly patient population. The high construct stiffness of instrumented thoracolumbar spinal fusion has been postulated to lead to a higher incidence of proximal junctional kyphosis (PJK) and failure (PJF). Several cadaveric biomechanical studies have reported on surgical techniques to reduce the incidence of PJF/PJK. As yet, no overview has been made of these biomechanical studies. ⋯ A variety of techniques, involving either posterior semi-rigid junctional fixation or the reinforcement of vertebral bodies, has been biomechanically assessed. However, the low number of studies and variation in study protocols hampers direct comparison of different techniques. Furthermore, determination of what constitutes an optimal gradual transition zone and its translation to clinical practice, would aid comparison and further development of different semi-rigid junctional fixation techniques. Even though biomechanics are extremely important in the development of PJK/PJF, patient-specific factors should always be taken into account on a case-by-case basis when considering to apply a semi-rigid junctional fixation technique.