The eight-Plate (Orthofix) is a reasonable option for hemiepiphysiodesis but has an unacceptable failure rate in Blount disease (44%). There were no instances of failure in patients with other diagnoses. In Blount disease, stronger implants should be considered. Future implant designs should include stronger screws to decrease implant failure complications.

Patients with thoracic hyperkyphosis present even more of a challenge with respect to complications, specifically implant-related complications. Our study shows that growing rod surgery in patients with kyphosis more than 40° has significantly more general and implant complications than that in patients with normal thoracic kyphosis. Implant complications were more common in hyperkyphotic (>40°) patients and increased linearly with increasing kyphosis. The most common implant complication was rod breakage. Patients with hyperkyphotic thoracic spines, particularly syndromic patients, must be monitored closely and parents should be counseled regarding the likelihood of future adverse events.

Study Design: Cadaveric study. Objective: To evaluate accuracy, radiation exposure, and surgical time of a new robotic-assisted navigation (RAN) platform compared with freehand techniques in conventional open and percutaneous procedures. Methods: Ten board-certified surgeons inserted 16 pedicle screws at T10–L5 (n = 40 per technique) in 10 human cadaveric torsos. Pedicle screws were inserted with (1) conventional MIS technique (L2–L5, patient left pedicles), (2) MIS RAN (L2–L5, patient right pedicles), (3) conventional open technique (T10–L1, patient left pedicles), and (4) open RAN (T10–L1, patient right pedicles). Output included (1) operative time, (2) number of fluoroscopic images, and (3) screw accuracy. Results: In the MIS group, compared with the freehand technique, RAN allowed for use of larger screws (diameter: 6.6 ± 0.6 mm vs 6.3 ± 0.5 mm; length: 50.3 ± 4.1 mm vs 46.9 ± 3.5 mm), decreased the number of breaches >2 mm (0 vs 7), fewer fluoroscopic images (0 ± 0 vs 108.3 ± 30.9), and surgical procedure time per screw (3.6 ± 0.4 minutes vs 7.6 ± 2.0 minutes) (all P < .05). Similarly, in the open group, RAN allowed for use of longer screws (46.1 ± 4.1 mm vs 44.0 ± 3.8 mm), decreased the number of breaches >2 mm (0 vs 13), fewer fluoroscopic images (0 ± 0 vs 24.1 ± 25.8) (all P < .05), but increased total surgical procedure time (41.4 ± 8.8 minutes vs 24.7 ± 7.0 minutes, P = .000) while maintaining screw insertion time (3.31.4 minutes vs 3.1 ± 1.0 minutes, P = .650). Conclusion: RAN significantly improved accuracy and decreased radiation exposure in comparison to freehand techniques in both conventional open and percutaneous surgical procedures in cadavers. RAN significantly increased setup time compared with both conventional procedures.

No abstract

Study Design. Prospective, multicenter, partially randomized. Objective. Assess rates of complications, revision surgery, and radiation between Mazor robotic-guidance (RG) and fluoroguidance (FG). Summary of Background Data. Minimally invasive surgery MIS ReFRESH is the first study designed to compare RG and FG techniques in adult minimally invasive surgery (MIS) lumbar fusions. Methods. Primary endpoints were analyzed at 1 year follow-up. Analysis of variables through Cox logistic regression and a Kaplan-Meier Survival Curve of surgical complications. Results. Nine sites enrolled 485 patients: 374 (RG arm) and 111 (FG arm). 93.2% of patients had more than 1 year f/u. There were no differences for sex, Charlson Comorbidity Index, diabetes, or tumor. Mean age of RG patients was 59.0 versus 62.5 for FG (P ¼ 0.009) and body mass index (BMI) was 31.2 versus 28.1 (P< 0.001). Percentage of smokers was almost double in the RG (15.2% vs. 7.2%, P ¼ 0.029). Surgical time was similar (skin-toskin time/no. of screws) at 24.9 minutes RG and 22.9 FG (P ¼ 0.550). Fluoroscopy during surgery/no. of screws was 15.5 seconds RG versus 35.4 seconds FG, (15 seconds average reduction). Fluoroscopy time during instrumentation/no. of screws was 3.6 seconds RG versus 17.8 seconds FG showing an 80% average reduction of fluoro time/screw in RG (P < 0.001). Within 1 year follow-up, there were 39 (10.4%) surgical complications RG versus 39 (35.1%) FG, and 8 (2.1%) revisions RG versus 7 (6.3%) FG. Cox regression analysis including age, sex, BMI, CCI, and no. of screws, demonstrated that the hazard ratio (HR) for complication was 5.8 times higher FG versus RG (95% CI: 3.5-9.6, P < 0.001). HR for revision surgery was 11.0 times higher FG versus RG cases (95% CI 2.9-41.2, P < 0.001). Conclusion. Mazor robotic-guidance was found to have a 5.8 times lower risk of a surgical complication and 11.0 times lower risk for revision surgery. Surgical time was similar between groups and robotic-guidance reduced fluoro time per screw by 80% (approximately 1 min/case).