This group was also older and more levels fused than the late revision group. 2/2.

We’ll never stop discussing adjacent segment degeneration (ASD). Park et al followed 86 of their patients for a long time. They found early revision for ASD (w/in 5 years) associated with sagittal parameters, among other factors. 1/2.

Join millions who have switched to Grok.

What’s trending down? MVAs, GSWs, sports/recreation injuries, and SCI’s. @UMmedschool .2/2

Another trauma update, this one from our friends at Shock Trauma in Baltimore. Chiu et al did an analysis of 26 years of spine trauma demographics. What’s changed? Patients are getting older, the # of women is higher, falls are more common, and subluxations more frequent. 1/2

Other data are reaffirming what we already knew—there was no incidence of delayed spinal instability. 2/2

Okay, so I said it was rare to see articles on GSWs to the spine a while back. Well, here’s another one. Santangelo et al did a demographical update (which has not been done in a long time). Unfortunately, young black males are still the most affected. @URNeurosurgery 1/2

. in indolent conditions like pseudos and axial back pain. Read it and learn. 2/2

“Isn’t that cuti!” Not really, if we’re talking about Cutibacterium acnes. It might also be called, “The bacteria formerly known as P. acnes” (sorry Prince). Baroudi et al gave us a very thorough overview of C. acnes and its potential involvement . 1/2 @BrownMedicine.

Sure, variability is expected, but 30% of fellows did fewer than 250 cases. Is it enough? If more is better, then there’s work to be done. 2/2.

“How many cases do your fellows do?” It’s one of the first questions candidates ask about a program. Is there a magic number? Silvestre et al assessed the number and kinds of cases done by spine fellows in the US. @MUSC_COM

Cartagena-Reyes et al found no increase in women’s representation at 3 major meetings over 15 years. This is discussed in great detail, both about women and URIMs. In short, we need to be intentional and think outside our usual circles. @HopkinsMedicine

While blacks had higher chance of adverse events, reop, and non-home discharge after inpatient surgery, this was not the case with outpatient surgery compared to Whites. However, readmissions were still higher. 2/2

In world where inequities and health care disparities have infiltrated all corners of our world, it’s interesting to find outpatient spine surgery may be less disparate, per this paper by Amen et al. @HSpecialSurgery 1/2

I’m digging it—more objective functional outcome measures. A Danish group had patients with lumbar stenosis wear a thigh accelerometer for 7 days. Not too surprising, controls walked for continuous periods of moderate length than pts w/stenosis.

Using their parameters, they achieved 100% sensitivity and 92% specificity. I don’t know if I’m ready to give up my CT, but it’s compelling. 2/2.

Can’t tell if it’s OPLL on an MRI? Want to get a CT. Hold off for now. This time from Taiwan, Hsiung et al developed a new metric—the lesion quality (LQ) based on T1 and T2 MRI to diagnose OPLL. 1/2

Another novel use of the VBQ---to assess bone density of vertebrae w/ cervical OPLL. Why would it be different? OPLL can stress shield the bones. From a group in Shanghai, Lu et al found this to be true at C3, but not other levels.

Take home points: VBQ (on MRI) and HU (on CT) can work to predict some important things—fracture, construct failure. So if you didn’t get the DEXA, use what you have. It may save you some trouble. 2/2.

I hate self-promotion but take a look at the nice review by Agaronnik et al about using MRI and CT for opportunistic bone density measurement. There was some much data out there (and continues to come), I f-igured it was time to synthesize it. 1/2 @harvardmed

It was 150% higher if given 61-120 minutes before incision. Wow—time to change the standard. 2/2.