Talk:Spinal fusion

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jbonano15. Peer reviewers: Perseuspatel.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 10:00, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Needs work

There's a serious lack of coverage in this article. It barely discusses the conservative care almost always done leading up to surgery, and just a peek at ACOEM's revised guidelines or ODG's current guidelines will tell you there's a much, much bigger story than is shown in this article. A discussion of prevalence and necessity needs to be in the article at least; ACOEM's 2007 guidelines state that the US has the highest rate of fusions in the world, with radical variations in prevalence within the country "with no evidence of beneficial outcomes". The study difficulties associated with evaluating the efficacy of fusions should be noted as well; ACOEM notes most have insufficient sample sizes and/or heterogeneous patient populations. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 13:29, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

According to the study which ACOEM 2007 appears to directly cite for this (PMID 16462438), the U.S. has the highest rate of spine surgery in the world. It discusses fusion a lot however, and looks like a damn good ref for discussing prevalence at least in the United States... though it does appear to discuss other nations a little bit. A later study by some of the same physicians (PMID 19124635), cited by ODG, says fusion rates have increased 220% in the U.S. between 1990 and 2001. Hm. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 22:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Additional information should include information about failure rates, complications and post-operative limitations, and even malpractice trends.maclilus (talk) 19:27, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Work Plan to Edit "Spinal Fusion" for WikiProject Medicine

My planned edits for the month are by section, as follows:

Lead: add sources, improve sentence structure, give more broad overview
1 Medical Uses: add sources, edit for grammar/structure
2 Contraindications: do further research to see if there are any other
3 Epidemiology: update, add statistics based on various types of fusions
4 Technique: add sources, research to provide information about all the different types of spinal fusion
5 Society: no changes
6 References: delete unnecessary ones, add additional ones
7 Further Reading: update based on sources used
8 External Links: no changes

Proposed additional sections:

Risks and Complications: discuss risks of spinal fusion surgery

Recovery and Rehabilitation: add material about the recovery process after spinal fusion surgery

Costs: add some information about the costs of different types of spinal fusion surgery

Jbonano15 (talk) 21:56, 2 March 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review for JBonano15's outstanding contributions to the article.

Overall, excellent work! It was an interesting read that was easy to understand. I think you did a fantastic job of avoiding medical jargon, which can be very difficult when trying to explain such a complex procedure. The sections contained really high-yield information. The information you added is very relevant to patients and their families. Adding a risk and recovery section as a great idea. Thank you for adding high quality references to each of the sections.

Lead Section:

• Good use of external hyperlinks to help explain complex medical terms.
• Very well written and very easy to understand. Especially commendable given the complexity of this topic.

Medical uses:

• Consider explaining some of the technical terms here, like “narrowing of the spinal canal.
• Consider hyperlinking or explaining “neurogenic claudication”, “discogenic pain”.

Epidemiology:

• Consider adding a more recent analysis of spinal fusions in the US.
• I spot-checked a few of the hyperlinks and references- all worked well.

Costs:

• I like how you started the section by explaining some of the variables that affect the costs.
• Good breakdown of the cost of different procedures.

Techniques:

• Fantastic job on explaining the procedure in a patient-centered manner. You avoided medical jargon and provided an appropriate level of detail and information.
• Great work explaining the benefits of each of the surgical advancements (minimally invasive, use of hardware)
• Consider hyperlinking “bone graft”.
• In the future, it may be useful to add more information under the ‘thoracic spine’ sub-section to explain the indications for use of the various techniques listed.
• Under the “interbody fusion” bullet point, it may be useful to explain ‘anterior’ and ‘posterior’ as stomach/back.

Risks:

• Consider hyperlinking “bone graft” and “autograft’.
• Great chronologic breakdown of risks.
• Great job explaining terms like epidural fibrosis and adjacent segment disease.

Recovery:

• Awesome section. I like how you hit on some important milestones in recovery, such as walking and driving.
• Patients will definitely appreciate this information.

Thanks for all your effort! -Perseus — Preceding unsigned comment added by Perseuspatel (talk • contribs) 19:14, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Not really notable

So moved here Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)

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References