A new study published in The Spine Journal examines the dual attending surgeon strategy for adolescent idiopathic scoliosis patients and whether the strategy improves posterior selective thoracic fusion in Lenke 1 and 2 perioperative outcomes.
There were 116 patients who underwent posterior selective thoracic fusion who participated in the study. The prospective study examined cases at two centers and compared those with a single surgeon to those where two surgeons were present. There were 86 patients who had two surgeons present during the procedure.
The researchers found:
1. In cases where the dual surgeon strategy was employed, the procedure had significantly shorter operative time: 164 minutes, compared with 257 minutes.
2. The blood loss was higher among patients where only a single surgeon was present — 1,254.7 mL — compared with the dual surgeon strategy, where average blood loss was 893.7 mL.
3. Seven patients in the single-surgeon group received allogenic blood transfusion.
4. The morphine use was 22.4 mg in the dual-surgeon strategy patients, significantly lower than the average for patients where only the single surgeon was present.
5. The average length of stay at the hospital was also shorter for the patients in the dual-surgeon group, at 3.4 days.
6. There weren’t any major complications in either group, except one patient from the single-surgeon group developed a superficial wound infection.
“A dual attending surgeon strategy was superior to a single surgeon strategy in posterior selective thoracic fusion in Lenke 1 and 2 AIS patients and will lead to a faster operation, reduced intra-operative blood loss, reduced risk of allogenic transfusion, reduced morphine requirement and shorter hospital stay,” concluded the study authors.