BACKGROUND Diabetes mellitus is thought to be a risk factor for surgical site infection. There have been no reports about the infection rate in diabetic patients who have undergone posterior spinal instrumented fusion. We present a retrospective analysis of infection rates after posterior spinal instrumented fusion in diabetic and non-diabetic patients. METHODS Of 337 patients who underwent p...

Spinal rigid instrumentations have been used to fuse and stabilize spinal segments as a surgical treatment for various spinal disorders to date. This technology provides immediate stability after surgery until the natural fusion mass develops. At present, rigid fixation is the current gold standard in surgical treatment of chronic back pain spinal disorders. However, such systems have several d...

BACKGROUND Pertinent literature on revision lumbar spinal surgery has revealed a wide variation in success rates, ranging from 12% to 82%. In addition, a solid consensus has not yet been reached on its positive factors. We retrospectively reviewed 124 consecutive patients who underwent revision lumbar spinal surgery and investigated the factors that affected the outcomes of their surgery. MET...

  Background: Controlling the hemodynamic situation of patients who have spinal operation is of prime importance, and maintaining the heart rate and blood pressure in normal or low- normal levels in these patients can reduce their bleeding loss. One of the commonly used drugs for this purpose is remifentanil. Another sedative-hypnotic-analgesic drug, with acceptable effects is dexmedetomidine. ...

This study investigated the surgical outcomes of spinal surgery for degenerative disorder in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Forty patients maintained on hemodialysis who underwent spinal surgery were reviewed. Of the 17 cases of cervical surgery, anterior fusion was performed in 3 patients, laminoplasty in 12, and posterior fusion in 2. Of the 29 cases of lumber surgery, decompression surger...

Anterior lumbar approach techniques for the management of discogenic back pain and placement of spinal instrumentation such as fusion and disc replacement prosthesis is becoming increasingly popular. To date, no studies have reported the clinical usage of spinal navigation with anterior lumber interbody fusion (ALIF) and total disk replacement (TDR). We describe a surgical procedure of a 35-yea...

Back and radicular pain is the leading cause of activity and productivity loss amongst adults of any age in the United States [Ref. 1]. In many cases, surgical intervention is required, including at least 5,000 interbody spinal fusion cages implanted each month in the U.S. alone [Ref. 2]. The total U.S. market for spinal fusion implants was valued at nearly $4 billion in 2008 [Ref. 3]. Interbod...

Low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (LIPUS) has been found to accelerate spinal fusion. Type H microvessels are found in close relation with bone development. We analyzed the role of type H vessels in rat spinal fusion model intervened by LIPUS. It was found LIPUS could significantly accelerate bone fusion rate and enlarge bone callus. Osteoblasts were specifically located on the bone meshwork of t...

BACKGROUND Interbody fusion surgery has been considered by many to be a treatment of choice for instability in lumbar degenerative disc disease. A posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) has the advantages of spinal canal decompression, anterior column reconstruction, and reduction of the sagittal slips from a single posterior approach. The PLIF using double cage was a standard practice till m...

INTRODUCTION Ventral cervical spinal epidural abscess is a very rare clinical condition with a relatively high morbidity and mortality. Due to the paucity of reported cases there is heterogeneity and no clear "gold standard" in the treatment of these patients. OBJECTIVE The authors report four consecutive patients with ventral cervical spinal epidural abscess treated with anterior cervical di...