Symptomatic spinal epidural hematoma after posterior cervical surgery: incidence and risk factors.

BACKGROUND CONTEXT: The true incidence of symptomatic spinal epidural hematoma (SEH) after surgery of the posterior cervical spine and risk factors for its development remain unclear. PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to determine the 10-year incidence of symptomatic postoperative SEH and identify risk factors for its development. STUDY DESIGN/SETTING: This study is a retrospective observational study at a Canadian tertiary care spine center. PATIENT SAMPLE: The study sample includes adult patients undergoing posterior surgery of the cervical spine. OUTCOME MEASURES: The outcome measures were the incidence of symptomatic postoperative SEH and risk factors for its development. METHODS: Surgical procedure codes were used to identify study candidates. Using a standard data collection form, two independent reviewers manually searched paper and electronic medical records to extract patient-, treatment-, and complication-related data. Time to presentation, clinical findings, method of treatment, and intraoperative findings (when relevant) were recorded for patients with an SEH. The overall incidence of symptomatic SEH was calculated, and the categorical and continuous variables were summarized with percentages and means, respectively. Stepwise forward selection logistic regression analysis was performed to identify risk factors for the development of symptomatic SEH. RESULTS: From January 2002 to December 2011, 529 patients (356 men and 173 women; mean age, 56.7 years) were identified for study inclusion. The mean Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI) was 0.65 (range, 0-8). Myelopathy was the most common surgical indication (n=293; 55.4%), with the largest subset of patients undergoing decompression with or without instrumented fusion (n=266; 50.3%). Symptomatic postoperative SEH was diagnosed in eight patients for an overall incidence of 1.5%. Postoperative nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) use and an increased CCI were identified as significant predictors of the development of a symptomatic SEH in our study cohort (p=.024 and .003, respectively). When all other variables remained constant, a 1-point increase in CCI was associated with 1.6 times higher odds of hematoma development, whereas postoperative NSAID use increased the odds 6.6 times. CONCLUSIONS: Symptomatic SEH may occur in up to 1.5% of patients undergoing posterior cervical spine surgery. Patients with a higher level of comorbid disease appear to be at increased risk of development of a symptomatic SEH, although avoidance of postoperative NSAIDs may decrease the risk of its development.

Treatment of herniated lumbar disk by sequestrectomy or conventional diskectomy.

BACKGROUND: The optimal surgical technique to treat disk herniation radiculopathy is uncertain. Advocates of sequestrectomy cite less perioperative pain and preserved disk architecture, whereas advocates of conventional diskectomy cite less frequent recurrent herniation. METHODS: Consecutive patients were evaluated retrospectively from 2 independent practices, one in which sequestrectomy was performed and one in which conventional diskectomy was performed. Demographic, radiographic, and outcomes data were analyzed to assess clinical results and incidence of recurrent herniation requiring further operation. Patients requiring further surgery were identified from a government-run provincial database independent of the surgeon performing the second procedure. RESULTS: Among 172 patients (98 conventional diskectomy procedures, 74 sequestrectomy procedures), there were no significant differences in age, gender, smoking status, or level of disk herniation. Conventional diskectomy was not associated with greater blood loss, longer surgery, or longer length of stay compared with sequestrectomy. At 3-month follow-up, approximately 85% of patients improved clinically regardless of the procedure performed. However, recurrent herniation over 6 years median follow-up requiring further surgery was lower among patients receiving conventional diskectomy (10% overall, 6% same-level, 4% adjacent-level) compared with sequestrectomy (19% overall, 15% same-level, 4% adjacent-level). CONCLUSIONS: No clinical advantage was found to performing a limited sequestrectomy instead of conventional microdiskectomy for the treatment of radiculopathy owing to lumbar disk herniation. Conversely, the incidence of recurrent disk herniation requiring revision surgery was lower in patients treated by more aggressive disk removal.

Results of a phase II placebo-controlled randomized trial of minocycline in acute spinal cord injury.

Preclinical studies have attributed neuroprotective properties to the antibiotic minocycline. Animal studies and early clinical trials support its use in several neurological diseases. In animal spinal cord injury models, minocycline improved neurological and histological outcomes, reduced neuronal and oligodendroglial apoptosis, decreased microglial activation and reduced inflammation. A single-centre, human, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of minocycline administration after spinal cord injury was undertaken for the purposes of dose optimization, safety assessment and to estimate outcome changes and variance. Neurological, functional, pharmacological and adverse event outcomes were compared between subjects administered 7 days of intravenous minocycline (n = 27) or placebo (n = 25) after acute traumatic spinal cord injury. The secondary outcome used to assess neurological differences between groups that may warrant further investigation was motor recovery over 1 year using the American Spinal Cord Injury Association examination. Recruitment and analyses were stratified by injury severity and injury location a priori given the expected influence of these on the sensitivity of the motor exam. Minocycline administered at higher than previously reported human doses produced steady-state concentrations of 12.7 µg/ml (95% confidence interval 11.6-13.8) in serum and 2.3 µg/ml (95% confidence interval 2.1-2.5) in cerebrospinal fluid, mimicking efficacious serum levels measured in animal studies. Transient elevation of serum liver enzymes in one patient was the only adverse event likely related to the study drug. Overall, patients treated with minocycline experienced six points greater motor recovery than those receiving placebo (95% confidence interval -3 to 14; P = 0.20, n = 44). No difference in recovery was observed for thoracic spinal cord injury (n = 16). A difference of 14 motor points that approached significance was observed in patients with cervical injury (95% confidence interval 0-28; P = 0.05, n = 25). Patients with cervical motor-incomplete injury may have experienced a larger difference (results not statistically significant, n = 9). Functional outcomes exhibited differences that lacked statistical significance but that may be suggestive of improvement in patients receiving the study drug. The minocycline regimen established in this study proved feasible, safe and was associated with a tendency towards improvement across several outcome measures. Although this study does not establish the efficacy of minocycline in spinal cord injury the findings are encouraging and warrant further investigation in a multi-centre phase III trial. ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT00559494.

Occult pneumothoraces truly occult or simply missed: redux.

BACKGROUND: As utilization of computed tomography (CT) scans in the evaluation of trauma patients increases, pneumothoraces (PTXs) seen on CT but not on chest X-ray (CXR), known as occult PTXs (OPTXs), are becoming more prevalent. The incidence of PTXs simply missed on CXR among OPTXs is unclear. A previous retrospective review of CXRs at our institution generally confirmed the occult versus missed designation, but lower fidelity images may have biased this determination. Thus, we repeated this evaluation using the high-quality images and improved the methodology. METHODS: The 70 Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM)-quality CXR images were randomly selected from two prospectively collected trauma databases including 22 normal, 5 overt PTX, and 43 study OPTX images. All CXR images were corroborated with multidetector CT imaging. Two blinded fellowship-trained radiologists reviewed and evaluated all the images on an IMPAX viewer. RESULTS: All images were deemed "adequate" except for one CXR by a single reviewer. For PTX diagnosis, agreement was 60% for overt PTXs, 86% for normal CXRs, and 81% for study OPTXs, yielding a kappa statistic of 0.51 (95% confidence interval, 0.22-0.81) indicating moderate agreement. Considering only the cases where the reviewers agreed, 80% of the study OPTXs were truly occult versus missed (95% confidence interval, 63-92%). In the 7 missed PTXs, subcutaneous emphysema (5), pleural line (3), and deep sulcus sign (2) were detected. CONCLUSION: We estimate that 80% of PTXs considered occult in the trauma room were truly occult. The most common missed sign was subcutaneous emphysema. PTXs are poorly assessed by CXR, and accurate diagnosis should focus on other imaging modalities.