7 Things for Spine Surgeons to Know for Thursday

Here are seven things for spine surgeons to know for Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013. North American Spine Society announced 2013-2014 officers.
The North American Spine Society announced officers for next year. William Watters, MD, was announced as the new president. Heidi Prather, DO, will serve as first vice president; Christopher Bono, MD, as second vice president; F. Todd Wetzel, MD, as secretary; and Jeffrey Wang, MD, as treasurer.

4 papers received NASS outstanding paper awards.
The North American Spine Society awarded the 2013 Outstanding Paper Awards to four papers this year. The papers dealt with topics such as the link between physical activity and low back pain; the cost of spinal surgery compared with hip and knee surgery; lumbar interbody fusion with and bone BMP; and back pain's association with vertebral endplate signal changes.

NASS awarded 7 research grants.
The North American Spine Society awarded a total of $349,646 to this year's recipients of the research grants. Winners were selected by the NASS Research Project Management Committee and Research Council and approved by the executive Committee. Click here to view all winners.

NASS awarded clinical & research traveling fellowships.
The North American Spine Society granted its 2013 research and clinical traveling fellowship awards. The organization awarded the 2013 Research Traveling Fellowship to Alessandra Berton, MD, from Rome and the Clinical Traveling Fellowship to Deb Kumar Roy, MBBS, MRCS (Ed) from Birmingham, UK.

Spinal Elements raised $250k in one year from Hero Allograft.
Spinal Elements celebrated the one-year anniversary of its "Hero Allograft" launch last week. The company donates 100 percent of the net proceeds of sales from the allograft to charities benefiting children with life-threatening medical conditions. The company reported it will have raised $250,000 by the end of this year from Hero Allograft sales. Donations have been split nationally between "Make-A-Wish" and the "St. Jude Children's Research Hospital."

Patient satisfaction is not always indicative of quality spine surgery outcomes.
Patient satisfaction weakly correlates to actual spine surgical outcomes, according to research published in the September issue of The Spine Journal. Researchers, led by Saniya Godil, MD, of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, looked at 422 consecutive patients who underwent elective spine surgery to treat degenerative conditions. They discovered a disconnect between satisfied patients and those experiencing readmissions, improved quality of life and general health improvement.

Complications more common in multilevel ACDF procedures.
Researchers examined the MarketScan database on ACDF procedures performed 2006 to 2010 and found that perioperative complications were more common among multilevel procedures. They also found 30 days postoperatively, patients who received multilevel ACDF were 1.6 times more likely to undergo revision surgery. Two years postoperatively, single-level ACDF patients had a revision rate of 9.13 percent.

Risks of O-Arm navigation for pedicle screw placement analyzed.
The study authors examined 26 patients who underwent L4-5 fusion with O-arm based navigation to insert the 104 screws. The researchers found one screw breached the pedicle laterally and noted seven screws with non-significant anteriolateral cortical perforations at the L5 level.

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