Surgical Treatments for Lumbar Disc Disease in Adolescent Patients; Chemonucleolysis / Microsurgical Discectomy / PLIF with Cages

The herniated lumbar disc (HLD) in adolescent patients is characterized by typical discogenic pain that originates from a soft herniated disc. It is frequently related to back trauma, and sometimes it is also combined with a degenerative process and a bony spur such as posterior Schmorl's node. Chemonucleolysis is an excellent minimally invasive treatment having these criteria: leg pain rather than back pain, severe limitation on the straight leg raising test (SLRT), and soft disc protrusion on computed tomography (CT). Microsurgical discectomy is useful in the cases of extruded or sequestered HLD and lateral recess stenosis due to bony spur because the nerve root is not decompressed with chymopapain. Spinal fusion, like as PLIF, should be considered in the cases of severe disc degeneration, instability, and stenosis due to posterior central bony spur. In our study, 185 adolescent patients, whose follow-up period was more than 1 year (the range was 1 - 4 years), underwent spinal surgery due to HLD from March, 1998 to December, 2002 at our institute. Among these cases, we performed chemonucleolysis in 65 cases, microsurgical discectomy in 94 cases, and posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) with cages in 33 cases including 7 reoperation cases. The clinical success rate was 91% for chemonucleolysis, 95% for microsurgical disectomy, and 89% for PLIF with cages, and there were no nonunion cases for the PLIF patients with cages. In adolescent HLD, chemonucleolysis was the 1st choice of treatment because the soft adolescent HLD was effectively treated with chemonucleolysis, especially when the patient satisfied the chemonucleolysis indications

Types and Prevalence of Coexisting Spine Lesions on Whole Spine Sagittal MR Images in Surgical Degenerative Spinal Diseases

∙The authors have no financial conflicts of interest. Purpose: We investigated types and prevalence of coexisting lesions found on whole spine sagittal T2-weighted images (WSST2I) acquired from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and evaluated their clinical significance in surgical degenerative spinal diseases. Materials and Methods: Coexisting spinal lesions were investigated using WSST2I from 306 consecutive patients with surgical degenerative spinal diseases. Severity of coexisting lesions was classified into four grades (0-3). Lesions of grade 2 and 3 were defined as “meaningful coexisting spine lesions ” (MCSL). Degenerative spinal diseases were classified into three pathologies: simple disc herniation, degenerative spinal stenosis, and ligament ossification disease. The relationships between MCSL, gender, age, and primary spine lesions were analyzed. Results: MCSL were found in 95 patients: a prevalence of 31.1%. Five out of 95 MCSL were surgically managed. The most common types of MCSL were disc herniation with 13.1 % prevalence, followed b

Predicting Mechanical Complications After Adult Spinal Deformity Operation Using a Machine Learning Based on Modified Global Alignment and Proportion Scoring With Body Mass Index and Bone Mineral Density

Objective This study aimed to create an ideal machine learning model to predict mechanical complications in adult spinal deformity (ASD) surgery based on GAPB (modified global alignment and proportion scoring with body mass index and bone mineral density) factors. Methods Between January 2009 and December 2018, 238 consecutive patients with ASD, who received at least 4-level fusions and were followed-up for ≥2 years, were included in the study. The data were stratified into training (n=167, 70%) and test (n=71, 30%) sets and input to machine learning algorithms, including logistic regression, random forest gradient boosting system, and deep neural network. Results Body mass index, bone mineral density, the relative pelvic version score, the relative lumbar lordosis score, and the relative sagittal alignment score of the global alignment and proportion score were significantly different in the training and test sets (p<0.05) between the complication and no complication groups. In the training set, the area under receiver operating characteristics (AUROCs) for logistic regression, gradient boosting, random forest, and deep neural network were 0.871 (0.817–0.925), 0.942 (0.911–0.974), 1.000 (1.000–1.000), and 0.947 (0.915–0.980), respectively, and the accuracies were 0.784 (0.722–0.847), 0.868 (0.817–0.920), 1.000 (1.000–1.000), and 0.856 (0.803–0.909), respectively. In the test set, the AUROCs were 0.785 (0.678–0.893), 0.808 (0.702–0.914), 0.810 (0.710–0.910), and 0.730 (0.610–0.850), respectively, and the accuracies were 0.732 (0.629–0.835), 0.718 (0.614–0.823), 0.732 (0.629–0.835), and 0.620 (0.507–0.733), respectively. The random forest achieved the best predictive performance on the training and test dataset. Conclusion This study created a comprehensive model to predict mechanical complications after ASD surgery. The best prediction accuracy was 73.2% for predicting mechanical complications after ASD surgery. This information can be used to prevent mechanical complications during ASD surgery

Contributing factors affecting the prognosis surgical outcome for thoracic OLF

The thoracic ossification of ligamentum flavum (OLF) is a disease that produces spastic paraparesis, and there are various factors that may affect the surgical outcome of thoracic OLF patients. The authors of this study treated 19 of these thoracic OLF patients from 1998 to 2002, and retrospectively reviewed the patients′ age, sex, symptom duration, involved disease level, preoperative clinical features, neurological findings, radiological findings, the other combined spinal diseases and the surgical outcomes. There were excellent or good surgical outcomes in 16 patients, but 3 patients did not improve after thoracic OLF surgery: this included 1 patient, whose motor function worsened after decompressive thoracic OLF surgery. The favorable contributing factors of surgical outcome in thoracic OLF are a short preoperative symptom duration, single-level lesion, and unilateral lesion type on CT axial scan. On the contrary, the poor prognostic factors are beak type lesion and intramedullary signal changes on T2-weighted sagittal MRI. The complete preoperative evaluation including radiologic findings will provide valuable aid in presuming the surgical outcome for the thoracic OLF patients.ope

A Rare Case of Aggressive Melanotic Schwannoma Occurred in Spinal Nerve of a 59-Year-Old Male

Melanotic schwannoma (MS) is a rare variant of nerve sheath neoplasm that shows ultrastructural and immunophenotypical features of Schwann cells but also has cytoplasmic melanosomes and is reactive for melanocytic markers as well. Unlike conventional schwannoma, which is totally benign, MS has an unpredictable prognosis and is thought to have low-malignant potential. Herein, we present a rare case of recurrent MS in lumbar spine of a 59-year-old male

Minimally Invasive Transforaminal Lumbar Interbody Fusion with Unilateral Pedicle Screw Fixation: Comparison between Primary and Revision Surgery

Minimally invasive surgery with a transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (MIS TLIF) is an important minimally invasive fusion technique for the lumbar spine. Lumbar spine reoperation is challenging and is thought to have greater complication risks. The purpose of this study was to compare MIS TLIF with unilateral screw fixation perioperative results between primary and revision surgeries. This was a prospective study that included 46 patients who underwent MIS TLIF with unilateral pedicle screw. The patients were divided into two groups, primary and revision MIS TLIF, to compare perioperative results and complications. The two groups were similar in age, sex, and level of operation, and were not significantly different in the length of follow-up or clinical results. Although dural tears were more common with the revision group (primary 1; revision 4), operation time, blood loss, total perioperative complication, and fusion rates were not significantly different between the two groups. Both groups showed substantial improvements in VAS and ODI scores one year after surgical treatment. Revision MIS TLIF performed by an experienced surgeon does not necessarily increase the risk of perioperative complication compared with primary surgery. MIS TLIF with unilateral pedicle screw fixation is a valuable option for revision lumbar surgery

Cervical Osteochondroma Presenting as Brown-Sequard Syndrome in a Child with Hereditary Multiple Exostosis

Cervical cord compression due to osteochondroma in hereditary multiple exostosis (HME) is a rare condition, especially in young children. In this report, we discuss a rare case of cervical osteochondroma presenting as Brown-Sequard syndrome (BSS) in a 7-year-old boy with HME. The child was admitted because of hemiparesis involving the right limbs and hypoesthesia on the left side following mild trauma. MR image revealed cord compression by osteochondroma of the C7 lamina. We removed the osteocondroma and the neurological deficit was improved