At the 12th Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven Conference in Chicago on June 13, Krzystof Siemienow, MD, chief of spine surgery and assistant professor of orthopaedics and neurosurgery at the University of Illinois in Chicago gave a presentation titled "Complex Cervical Spine — Key Developments."
In his presentation, Dr. Siemienow highlighted a few new devices available for spine surgeons. One of those was Stand-alone Interbody Spacers. "The SIS devices may be a reasonable option as a stand alone device for single level fixation," said Dr. Siemienow. However, "SIS devices should be used with careful consideration in the setting of multilevel cervical fusions," he said.
Dr. Sieminow also discussed several new studies affecting spine surgeons. One of the studies he covered found hybrid surgery was associated with motion preservation of the operative levels and revealed less adverse effects on adjacent segments. However, "indications of hybrid surgery still need be clearly defined," he said.
Dr. Sieminow also discussed a study that looked at complication rates associated with cervical spine surgery across races. The study found "there were no differences between whites and Hispanics in complication rates, but blacks had significantly higher rates of complications," he said. The researchers were unable to identify why the complication rates were significantly higher for the black patients, and racial differences in cervical spine complications is an area that will need to be explored more in the future.
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