Treatment of adult deformity surgery by orthopedic and neurological surgeons: trends in treatment, techniques, and costs by specialty.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-25-2023

Publication Title

The spine journal : official journal of the North American Spine Society

Keywords

washington; swedish; swedish neurosci; Adult spinal deformity; Complications; Cost effectiveness; Neurological surgery; Orthopedic surgery; Surgical education

Abstract

BACKGROUND CONTEXT: Surgery to correct adult spinal deformity (ASD) is performed by both neurological surgeons and orthopedic surgeons. Despite well-documented high costs and complication rates following ASD surgery, there is a dearth of research investigating trends in treatment according to surgeon subspeciality.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this investigation was to perform an analysis of surgical trends, costs and complications of ASD operations by physician specialty using a large, nationwide sample.

STUDY DESIGN/SETTING: Retrospective cohort study using an administrative claims database.

PATIENT SAMPLE: A total of 12,929 patients were identified with ASD that underwent deformity surgery performed by neurological or orthopedic surgeons.

OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was surgical case volume by surgeon specialty. Secondary outcomes included costs, medical complications, surgical complications, and reoperation rates (30-day, 1-year, 5-year, and total).

METHODS: The PearlDiver Mariner database was queried to identify patients who underwent ASD correction from 2010 to 2019. The cohort was stratified to identify patients who were treated by either orthopedic or neurological surgeons. Surgical volume, baseline characteristics, and surgical techniques were examined between cohorts. Multivariable logistic regression was employed to assess the cost, rate of reoperation and complication according to each subspecialty while controlling for number of levels fused, rate of pelvic fixation, age, gender, region and Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI). Alpha was set to 0.05 and a Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons was utilized to set the significance threshold at p ≤.000521.

RESULTS: A total of 12,929 ASD patients underwent deformity surgery performed by neurological or orthopedic surgeons. Orthopedic surgeons performed most deformity procedures accounting for 64.57% (8,866/12,929) of all ASD operations, while the proportion treated by neurological surgeons increased 44.2% over the decade (2010: 24.39% vs. 2019: 35.16%; p

CONCLUSIONS: This investigation of over 12,000 ASD patients demonstrates orthopedic surgeons continue to perform the majority of ASD correction surgery, although neurological surgeons are performing an increasingly larger percentage over time with a 44% increase in the proportion of surgeries performed in the decade. In this cohort, neurological surgeons more frequently operated on older and more comorbid patients, utilizing shorter-segment fixation with greater use of navigation and robotic assistance.

Clinical Institute

Neurosciences (Brain & Spine)

Clinical Institute

Orthopedics & Sports Medicine

Department

Neurosciences

Department

Oncology

Department

Surgery

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