This is a multivariate analysis of a prospectively collected database.
To determine preoperative, intraoperative, and patient characteristics that contribute to an increased risk of postoperative ...wound infection in patients undergoing spinal surgery.
Current literature sites a postoperative infection rate of approximately 4%; however, few have completed multivariate analysis to determine factors which contribute to risk of infection.
Our study identified patients who underwent a spinal decompression and fusion between 1997 and 2006 from the Veterans Affairs' National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to determine the effect of various preoperative variables on postoperative infection.
Data on 24,774 patients were analyzed. Wound infection was present in 752 (3.04%) patients, 287 (1.16%) deep, and 468 (1.89%) superficial. Postoperative infection was associated with longer hospital stay (7.12 vs. 4.20 days), higher 30-day mortality (1.06% vs. 0.5%), higher complication rates (1.24% vs. 0.05%), and higher return to the operating room rates (37% vs. 2.45%). Multivariate logistic regression identified insulin dependent diabetes (odds ratios OR = 1.50), current smoking (OR = 1.19) ASA class of 3 (OR = 1.45) or 4 to 5 (OR = 1.66), weight loss (OR = 2.14), dependent functional status (1.36) preoperative HCT <36 (1.37), disseminated cancer (1.83), fusion (OR = 1.24) and an operative duration of 3 to 6 hours (OR = 1.33) or >6 hours (OR = 1.40) as statistically significant predictors of postoperative infection.
Using multivariate analysis of a large prospectively collected data from the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program database, we identified the most important risk factors for increased postoperative spinal wound infection. We have demonstrated the high mortality, morbidity, and hospitalization costs associated with postoperative spinal wound infections. The information provided should help alert clinicians to presence of these risks factors and the likelihood of higher postoperative infections and morbidity in spinal surgery patients.
Augmented reality (AR) is increasingly being explored as an adjunct to conventional neuronavigation systems. AR affords the ability to superimpose 3-dimensional images onto the real environment. A ...natural extension of this technology is to help guide neurosurgical planning and a means of stereotactic planning and guidance. Here we review the literature on the use of AR in neurosurgery with a focus on current technologies and limitations. Furthermore, we discuss this technology in the context of neurosurgical training as an educational tool.
PubMed search was performed for “augmented reality and neurosurgery” and “mixed reality and neurosurgery” from 2010. A total of 113 articles written in the last 5 years were retrieved, and 39 were ultimately included in the systematic review.
The most common use of AR in neurosurgery was in cranial surgery (n = 26). Other uses included spine surgery (n = 9) and education (n = 2). Devices used for display of AR images varied as did image-to-patient registration methods and overall system accuracy.
Although various AR systems have been successfully utilized across many neurosurgical disciplines, more research is needed to improve accuracy in registration and to assess whether AR-assisted surgery is safe and effective for widespread adoption.
Leptomeningeal disease has become increasingly prevalent as novel therapeutic interventions extend the survival of cancer patients. Although a majority of leptomeningeal spread occurs secondary to ...breast cancer, lung cancer, and melanoma, a wide variety of malignancies have been reported as primary sources. Symptoms on presentation are equally diverse, often involving a combination of neurological deficits with the possibility of obstructive hydrocephalus. Diagnosis is definitively made via cerebrospinal fluid cytology for malignant cells, but neuro-imaging with high quality T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging can aid diagnosis and localization. While leptomeningeal disease is still a terminal, late-stage complication, a variety of treatment modalities, such as intrathecal chemotherapeutics and radiation therapy, have improved median survival from 4-6 weeks to 3-6 months. Positive prognosticative factors for survival include younger age, high performance scores, and controlled systemic disease. In looking to the future, diagnostics that improve early detection and chemotherapeutics tailored to the primary malignancy will likely be the most significant advances in improving survival.
Spinal cord stimulation (SCS) is an alternative or adjunct therapy to treat chronic pain, a prevalent and clinically challenging condition. Although SCS has substantial clinical success, the therapy ...is still prone to failures, including lead breakage, lead migration, and poor pain relief. The goal of this study was to develop a computational model of SCS and use the model to compare activation of neural elements during intradural and extradural electrode placement. We constructed five patient-specific models of SCS. Stimulation thresholds predicted by the model were compared to stimulation thresholds measured intraoperatively, and we used these models to quantify the efficiency and selectivity of intradural and extradural SCS. Intradural placement dramatically increased stimulation efficiency and reduced the power required to stimulate the dorsal columns by more than 90%. Intradural placement also increased selectivity, allowing activation of a greater proportion of dorsal column fibers before spread of activation to dorsal root fibers, as well as more selective activation of individual dermatomes at different lateral deviations from the midline. Further, the results suggest that current electrode designs used for extradural SCS are not optimal for intradural SCS, and a novel azimuthal tripolar design increased stimulation selectivity, even beyond that achieved with an intradural paddle array. Increased stimulation efficiency is expected to increase the battery life of implantable pulse generators, increase the recharge interval of rechargeable implantable pulse generators, and potentially reduce stimulator volume. The greater selectivity of intradural stimulation may improve the success rate of SCS by mitigating the sensitivity of pain relief to malpositioning of the electrode. The outcome of this effort is a better quantitative understanding of how intradural electrode placement can potentially increase the selectivity and efficiency of SCS, which, in turn, provides predictions that can be tested in future clinical studies assessing the potential therapeutic benefits of intradural SCS.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a well-established modality for the treatment of advanced Parkinson disease (PD). Recent studies have found DBS plus best medical therapy to be superior to best ...medical therapy alone for patients with PD and early motor complications. Although no specific age cutoff has been defined, most clinical studies have excluded patients older than 75 years of age. We hypothesize that increasing age would be associated with an increased number of postoperative complications.
To evaluate the stepwise effect of increasing age (in 5-year epochs) on short-term complications following DBS surgery.
A large, retrospective cohort study was performed using the Thomson Reuters MarketScan national database that examined 1757 patients who underwent DBS for PD during the period from 2000 to 2009.
Primary measures examined included hospital length of stay and aggregate and individual complications within 90 days following surgery. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to calculate complication-related odds ratios (ORs) for each 5-year age epoch after controlling for covariates.
Overall, 132 of 1757 patients (7.5%) experienced at least 1 complication within 90 days, including wound infections (3.6%), pneumonia (2.3%), hemorrhage or hematoma (1.4%), or pulmonary embolism (0.6%). After adjusting for covariates, we found that increasing age (ranging from <50 to 90 years of age) did not significantly affect overall 90-day complication rates (OR, 1.10 per 5-year increase 95% CI, 0.96-1.25; P = .17). The 2 most common procedure-related complications, hemorrhage (OR, 0.82 95% CI, 0.63-1.07; P = .14) and infection (OR, 1.04 95% CI, 0.87-1.24; P = .69), did not significantly increase with age.
Older patients with PD (>75 years) who were selected to undergo DBS surgery showed a similar 90-day complication risk (including postoperative hemorrhage or infection) compared with younger counterparts. Our findings suggest that age alone should not be a primary exclusion factor for determining candidacy for DBS. Instead, a clear focus on patients with medication-refractory and difficult to control on-off fluctuations with preserved cognition, regardless of age, may allow for an expansion of the traditional therapeutic window.
Retrospective, observational.
To simulate what episodes of care in spinal surgery might look like in a bundled payment system and to evaluate the associated costs and characteristics.
Episode-based ...payment bundling has received considerable attention as a potential method to help curb the rise in health care spending and is being investigated as a new payment model as part of the Affordable Care Act. Although earlier studies investigated bundled payments in a number of surgical settings, very few focused on spine surgery, specifically.
We analyzed data from MarketScan. Patients were included in the study if they underwent cervical or lumbar spinal surgery during 2000-2009, had at least 2-year preoperative and 90-day postoperative follow-up data. Patients were grouped on the basis of their diagnosis-related group (DRG) and then tracked in simulated episodes-of-care/payment bundles that lasted for the duration of 30, 60, and 90 days after the discharge from the index-surgical hospitalization. The total cost associated with each episode-of-care duration was measured and characterized.
A total of 196,918 patients met our inclusion criteria. Significant variation existed between DRGs, ranging from $11,180 (30-day bundle, DRG 491) to $107,642 (30-day bundle, DRG 456). There were significant cost variations within each individual DRG. Postdischarge care accounted for a relatively small portion of overall bundle costs (range, 4%-8% in 90-day bundles). Total bundle costs remained relatively flat as bundle-length increased (total average cost of 30-day bundle: $33,522 vs. $35,165 for 90-day bundle). Payments to hospitals accounted for the largest portion of bundle costs (76%).
There exists significant variation in total health care costs for patients who undergo spinal surgery, even within a given DRG. Better characterization of impacts of a bundled payment system in spine surgery is important for understanding the costs of index procedure hospital, physician services, and postoperative care on potential future health care policy decision making.
N/A.
Patients suffering from debilitating neurodegenerative diseases often lose the ability to communicate, detrimentally affecting their quality of life. One solution to restore communication is to ...decode signals directly from the brain to enable neural speech prostheses. However, decoding has been limited by coarse neural recordings which inadequately capture the rich spatio-temporal structure of human brain signals. To resolve this limitation, we performed high-resolution, micro-electrocorticographic (µECoG) neural recordings during intra-operative speech production. We obtained neural signals with 57× higher spatial resolution and 48% higher signal-to-noise ratio compared to macro-ECoG and SEEG. This increased signal quality improved decoding by 35% compared to standard intracranial signals. Accurate decoding was dependent on the high-spatial resolution of the neural interface. Non-linear decoding models designed to utilize enhanced spatio-temporal neural information produced better results than linear techniques. We show that high-density µECoG can enable high-quality speech decoding for future neural speech prostheses.
Digital health tools, including smartphone applications (apps), websites, and online search engines, are increasingly being utilized for health data collection and patient education. Studies have ...shown that these tools can help disseminate information widely and even help guide patients through acute surgical episodes. We aimed to search the literature to summarize available studies on using digital health tools for patients undergoing spine surgery.
We conducted a systematic review of PubMed MEDLINE, Elsevier EMBASE, and Elsevier Scopus databases, as well as ClinicalTrials.gov up to March 11, 2022.
Forty-four full-text articles were included and qualitatively analyzed. Studies were broadly grouped into those that analyzed the quality of web-based materials for patients, the quality of YouTube videos for spine surgery, the development, feasibility, and implementation of mobile apps for patients, and randomized controlled trials for integrating mobile apps into perioperative care.
We presented a systematic review analyzing the current landscape of digital health for patients undergoing spine surgery. Internet patient education materials in searchable websites and YouTube videos are of poor quality, lacking in readability to the average patient and robustness of information needed for patients to make informed decisions about pursuing spine surgery. However, there lies promise in digital apps developed to guide patients through surgery and collect postoperative outcomes.
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