Frank J. Schwab, MD, is the chief of spine service at the Hospital of Special Surgery in New York, N.Y., and founder of Nemaris. Dr. Schwab crafted a five step process to improve spinal surgery planning for treating adult spinal deformity, according to an interview by Medscape.
Here are the five steps to improve spinal surgery:
1. Define the underlying pathologic elements in sagittal plan alignment.
2. Highlight the impact of the pathologic region by removing the compensatory elements.
3. Define alignment goals on the basis of age and morphology of the patient.
4. Know the surgical strategy, i.e. one large or several small osteotomies or use of cages.
5. Verify the precise alignment change achieved in relation to the necessary of the plan preoperatively.
Dr. Schwad also recommends using Nemaris software to assist in the measurements and planning. The software uses a 3D multiplanar reformatting toolkit to show physicians the planning steps and simulate aspects of the surgery.