Here are 10 spine surgeons who performed debut procedures with new devices this year:
June
Raymond Gardocki, MD, performed the first fully endoscopic interbody fusion with Integrity Implants' Flarehawk 7 expandable cage.
Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University's Daniel Sciubba, MD, completed the first tumor resection with a new augmented reality system from Augmedics, an AR surgical image guidance startup.
Jaren Riley, MD, of Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children in Denver, performed the region's first surgery with a vertebral body tethering system.
Pierce Nunley, MD, performed the first procedure in a clinical trial examining the efficacy of a posterior cervical stabilization system in patients with three-level degenerative disc disease.
The first procedures with Orthofix's Firebird SI fusion system were completed by Justin Hall, MD.
May
The first lumbar spinal fusion that fuses two biocompatible polymer stabilization devices in the U.S. was completed by Steven Zielinski, MD.
April
Derek Taggard, MD, performed the first effective implantation of Nexxt Spine's Matrixx corpectomy system at Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, Calif.
February
Plano-based Texas Back Institute's Peter Derman, MD, completed the first procedure with the E3 MIS pedicle screw system, which is designed to improve placement of posterior instrumentation by percutaneous means.
January
William Tobler, MD, performed the first single-position lateral interbody fusion in an ASC at Cincinnati-based Mayfield Spine Surgery Center, using Medtronic devices.
Kornelis Poelstra, MD, PhD, of The Robotic Spine Institute of Silicon Valley in Los Gatos, Calif., became the first spine surgeon on the West Coast to implant a Molybdenum-Rhenium rod in a patient during a spinal fusion.