Nearly 1 million spine procedures using pedicle screws were performed in 2008, and published studies have shown high rates of misplacements that can lead to a number of serious complications for patients, including quadriplegia, according to the release. Liability risks for spine surgeons performing these procedures are also high.
“Anything we can do to help us get a safer screw insertion is certainly worthwhile, given that published rates of pedicle screw misplacements are as high as 20 percent. PediGuard makes spine surgery safer for surgeons also. Fluoroscopy is an imaging technique commonly used by physicians to obtain real-time images of the spine during surgery. While the exposure to a patient during one surgery is minimal, spine surgeons may perform 140 or more cases per year. Studies are showing that the use of PediGuard reduces fluoroscopy time by one-third in some surgeons’ cases. Less use of fluoroscopy per case means significantly less accumulated radiation exposure over the course of a typical year’s worth of cases,” Randal Betz, MD, chief of staff at Shriners Hospitals for
Children in Philadelphia, said in the release.
Officials from SpineGuard said in the release that the 10,000th case hopefully means that PediGuard is on its way to becoming a solution for safer pedicle screw placement and will mean a reduction of both radiation exposure and surgery time.
Read the release on PediGuard’s 10,000th case (pdf).
