Segmental vessel ligation during anterior spinal surgery has been associated with paraplegia. However, the incidence and risk factors for this devastating complication are debated. We reviewed 346 consecutive paediatric and adolescent patients ranging in age from three to 18 years who underwent surgery for anterior spinal deformity through a thoracic or thoracoabdominal approach, during which 2...

INTRODUCTION Intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) has become a standard of care in spinal deformity surgeries to minimize the incidence of new onset neurological deficit. Stagnara wake up test and ankle clonus test are the oldest techniques described for spinal cord monitoring, but they cannot be solely relied upon as a neuromonitoring modality. Somatosensory evoked potentials monitor only dor...

Materials and methods We retrospectively reviewed 16 paediatric patients affected by kyphotic spinal deformity (T3-T12 kyphosys > 60°) surgically treated with Growing Rod or VEPTR-like systems from 2006 to 2011. There were 8 males and 8 females, with a mean age of 7 years (range, 4 to 11). The aetiology was: idiopathic scoliosis (5 cases), kyphosis in Morquio disease (1) and in Pott disease (1)...

Abstract BACKGROUND CONTEXT Extended length of stay (extLOS) and unplanned readmissions after first time pediatric spinal deformity surgery are a considerable challenge to both the patient health-care system. To our knowledge, only limited number nationwide studies reporting short-term comorbidity with complete follow-up exist. PURPOSE The purpose this study was identify postoperative complicat...

In 21 children with myelomeningocele who underwent kyphectomy for congenital kyphosis of the lumbar spine, aortography revealed no case in which the aorta followed the spinal curvature. Many anomalies of the intercostal and segmental arteries were demonstrated which were only in part associated with deformities of the respective vertebral bodies. The kidneys, which were frequently malformed, of...

Drosophila has recently become a powerful model system to understand the mechanisms of temporal patterning of neural progenitors called neuroblasts (NBs). Two different temporal sequences of transcription factors (TFs) have been found to be sequentially expressed in NBs of two different systems: the Hunchback, Krüppel, Pdm1/Pdm2, Castor, and Grainyhead sequence in the Drosophila ventral nerve c...