Michael Fehlings (Toronto, Canada) talks to Spinal News International at DWG-Kongress (7–9 December 2022; Berlin, Germany) about the “dramatic shift” over the past 25 years in the management and outcomes of spinal cord injury (SCI) patients. “Time is spine” is an important...
 David Cumming, the current president of the British Association of Spine Surgeons (BASS), speaks to Spinal News International about some of the main messages and key themes to come out of this year’s meeting (23–25 March 2022; Belfast, UK),...
 Carlton Weatherby (Memphis, USA), vice president and general manager of spine and biologics at Medtronic, talks to Spinal News International about his own early experiences within a healthcare setting and specifically his “early affinity” to the field of spine. Spine...
Brian Goh (Boston, USA) speaks to Spinal News International about the results of a study that aimed to better understand the impact of surgical intervention in patients who sustained gunshot wound induced spinal injuries (GSIs), the results of which...
 Everard Munting (Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium), the current president of Eurospine, talks to Spinal News International about this year’s annual meeting, which took place between the 6–8 October in Vienna, Austria. Munting notes that “everybody was extremely happy to be there...
Frank Phillips (Chicago, USA) reflects on his experience as president of the International Society for the Advancement of Spine Surgery (ISASS), which held its annual in-person meeting 13–15 May 2021 in Miami, USA. Phillips gives Spinal News International an insight...
Bernhard Meyer (Munich, Germany) and Henry Halm (Neustadt, Germany) discuss spinal navigation—specifically any increased risk in radiation exposure and if that risk is offset by the potential benefit of an increase in precision of pedicle screw placement. The two physicians...
President of the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS), Peter Newton (San Diego, USA), speaks to BLearning at IMAST 2019 (17 –20 July, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) about this year’s annual meeting, which “focused on innovation” and covered the “breadth of spinal surgery, not just spinal deformity...
Fernando Techy (Johnstown, USA), speaks to BLearning at IMAST 2019 (17–20 July, Amsterdam, The Netherlands) about longer-term trials of disc replacement which, according to Techy, has shown that “we are having less re-operations with disc replacement compared to fusion” and that “disk...
Kenneth Cheung (Hong Kong) speaks to BLearning at IMAST 2019 (17 –20 July, Amsterdam) about how growth modulation techniques can be used to treat spinal deformity in young children. Traditionally, spinal deformity has been corrected using spinal fusion. However,...
Robert Lee (London, UK) tells Spinal News International why he prefers using computer navigation to free-hand technique in pedicle screw placement procedures. Lee explains that computer navigation can reduce surgeons' exposure to radiation and improve the accuracy and precision...

NSpine 2019 live coverage

The NSpine Main Conference will focus on the entire spine during a series of lectures & workshops. We comprehensively cover the entire range of spinal conditions relevant to spine health care professionals.   Stay tuned.... We go live on Monday...
Outgoing British Association of Spine Surgeons (BASS) president, Stuart Blagg (Aylesbury, UK), sits down with incoming president Sashin Ahuja (Cardiff, UK) at the BASS 2019 conference in Brighton to discuss Blagg’s achievements over the past two years as well...
Nicholas Theodore (Baltimore, USA) talks to Spinal News International about the benefits of robotics technology in spinal surgery including reducing radiation exposure to surgeons, improving accuracy and precision and ultimately allowing patients to get better faster. Theodore looks at...
Level 1 evidence, presented at EUROSPINE 2018 in Barcelona, Spain, demonstrates that i-FACTOR peptide enhanced bone graft results in significantly higher rates of fusion in uninstrumented lumbar spinal surgery than does the use of allograft. Michael Jacobsen (Middelfart, Denmark) spoke...
 Philip Sell (Leicester and Nottingham, UK) tells Spinal News International that as the field of spine surgery evolves from using generic to more specific outcome measures, he would be delighted to see a move away from surrogate outcome measures...
 Factors characterising an indication for surgery in lumbar spinal stenosis Outcomes following surgery for spinal stenosis present great variability, suggesting that patient selection could be improved. Anne Mannion (Senior Research Fellow, Spine Centre, Schulthess Klinik, Zürich, Switzerland) tells Spinal News...
 “Outcomes are important for patients. It is very important that we understand what happens to our patients when we carry out treatments, be they surgical interventions or conservative treatment. If we do not know that, we cannot adapt our...
 Frank Kandziora (Frankfurt, Germany), the 2018 president of EUROSPINE, the Spine Society of Europe, tells Spinal News International that assuring quality in spine surgery is a cornerstone of patient care.
At the NSpine meeting (London, UK), Ahmet Alanay (Istanbul, Turkey) discussed the surgical management of deformity in spina bifida patients. You can watch the full talk and subsequent discussion below.
At the NSpine meeting (London, UK), Alessandro Gasbarrini (Bologna, Italy) discussed decision making in recurrent spinal tumours. Click to watch the full talk here.
At the NSpine meeting (London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Benedictus Clinic Tutzing, Germany) discussed combined convex and concave costoplasty for posterior chest wall in adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS).
Timothy Bassett, MD, of SouthEastern Spine Specialists and Brad Prybis, MD of Carrollton Orthopaedic Clinic share their early clinical experience with interbody fusion devices made from PEEK-OPTIMA HA Enhanced for cervical and lumbar spinal fusion. Michael Veldman, Global Strategic...
Spinal News International caught up with pioneering veterinary surgeon Noel Fitzpatrick (Guildford, UK) at NSpine 2017. A developer of numerous spinal and orthopaedic procedures for animals, he explains the untapped benefits of collaboration between researchers and both human and...
Philip Breedon, professor of Smart Technologies at Nottingham Trent University (Nottingham, UK), takes Spinal News International through the latest developments in co-robotics and telerobotics, including his department's innovative Scolibot system. Scolibot uses one robot to track the movement of...
Spinal News International caught up with Max Aebi (Bern, Switzerland), executive chairman of eccElearning, at NSpine 2017. He discusses the ways that online learning platforms will transform medical education from large lecture-based conference teaching to digital lessons enriched by...
Dennis Cirino, NuVasive's vice president of Computer-Asissted surgery, spoke to Spinal News International at NSpine 2017 about the importance of alignment in both deformity and degenerative cases. He explains his role in developing a technology working to achieve alignment...
Spinal News International catches up with Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK), NSpine's director and course chairman, at this year's Main Conference. He talks about the importance of collaboration accross different clinical disciplines and industry, as well as the most promising...
At NSpine 2017, Vikas Kapoor (Stockport, UK) talked to Spinal News International about treatment options for facet joint pain. He discusses the potential benefits of ablating the facet capsule in addition to the medial nerve (Denervex, Medovex), as well...
Sonny Bal, president and chief executive officer of Amedica, spoke to Spinal News International at NSpine 2017 about the potential benefits of silicon nitride for spinal fusion implants. He discusses impressive fusion rates and mass, the material's antimicrobial nature...
Spinal News International caught up with Todd Wetzel (Philadelphia, USA), the current president of the North American Spine Society (NASS) at NSpine 2017. He discusses the society's educational opportunities, the importance of regulatory advocacy in an uncertain political climate,...
Dominique Rothenfluh (Oxford, UK) discusses the importance of considering alignment in spinal surgery at NSpine 2017. The alignment of the entire spine, he explains, must be taken into account to optimise outcomes. Rothenfluh takes us through strategies and devices...
Spinal News International caught up with with Behrooz Akbarnia (La Jolla, USA) at NSpine 2017 (12–15 July; London, UK) to talk about the challenges associated with treating early onset scoliosis. He talks about the specific problems faced by paediatric...
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses osteosynthesis of atlas fractures.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses difficult odontoid fractures.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses the technical steps involved in reconstructing lumbopelvic and sacral fractures.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses multilevel tumour resection including dura.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses how sacral osteotomy and lumbopelvic rotation can improve pelvic incidence.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses how he performs staged correction of adult kyphosis and spinal lengthening.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discusses anterior spinal access in an extra lunch time session.
At the NSpine meeting (12—15 June, 2017, London, UK), Bronek Boszczyk (Nottingham, UK) discussed multi level and thoracolumbar ALIF via visceral rotation in adult deformity.
Ralph Mobbs, a neurosurgeon from the Prince of Wales Hospital, Sydney, Australia, has replaced two cancerous vertebrae with 3D-printed implants, according to a report from the Australian Broadcasting Company (ABC). The world-first surgery took approximately 15 hours, and involved...
In this video shared by the Minimally Invasive Spine Centers of Excellence, Choll Kim (San Diego, USA) takes the viewer through a live laser endoscopic spine surgery. ...
In this video from the Journal of Neurosurgery, researchers present the case of a 53-year-old woman with "symptoms of both radiculopathy and myelopathy caused by a large, calcified disc herniation at C4–5." After four months of medical treatment and rehabilitation,...
In this video shared by the Journal of Neurosurgery, researchers describe the surgical nuances of two-level cervical arthroplasty in a case of 2-level degenerative disease. (Deshpande Rajakumar, Ankit Sharma, Akshay Hari, Subhas Konar, and Murali Krishna, Department of Neurosurgery, Fortis...
EUROSPINE's interview with Christian Liebsch, winner of the meeting's 2016 Full Paper Award. ...
See the highlights from the 1st International Conference on Sacroiliac Joint Surgery as we prepare for the 2nd conference on 16-17 September in Hamburg, Germany. Sacroiliac Medical Expert Group (SIMEG) e.V., based in the Cologne area/Germany announce their 2nd annual...
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine (Stanford, USA) have mapped out the sets of biological and chemical signals necessary to quickly and efficiently direct human embryonic stem cells to become pure populations of any of 12 cell...
Scientists have developed biodegradable polymer grafts that, when surgically placed in damaged vertebrae, should grow to be just the right size and shape to fix the spinal column. The researchers present their work today at the 251st National Meeting &...
Students from Hebrew University's BioDesign innovation programme develop an opto-electronic drilling system designed to facilitate highly accurate spinal fusion surgery with minimal side effects.
Dean Chau and Darryl Larry demonstrate the technique of the mini-open pedicle subtraction osteotomy, in a video for an ahead-of-print article to appear in Operative Neurosurgery.
Clarkson University professor Thomas Lufkin, Bayard and Virginia Clarkson Endowed Chair of Biology, is working to reprogramme embryonic stems cells to become the fibrocartilage that separates the vertebrae.
At the annual meeting of the North American Spine Society (NASS, 12-15 November 2014, San Francisco, USA), Neil D Broom and Samantha A Rodrigues presented a paper on the annulus-endplate anchorage system and its mechanisms of failure.

3D bone printing for the spine

3D bioprinting of a living bone construct can be used for more effective spinal fusion in the treatment of a collapsed vertebra, using areas with bone forming cells and areas for vascularisation.
Loyola Medicine orthopaedic surgeon Bartosz Wojewnik performs spinal decompression and fusion surgery to bring his patient immediate pain relief.
John J Carbone, MedStar Harbor Hospital, Baltimore, USA, performs a posterior revision decompression and lumbar fusion surgery of the spine.
Haluk Berk, incoming president of EUROSPINE talks about his strategy for the future of the society over the next year.
Philip Sell, incoming president of EuroSpine, speaks in an interview about his upcoming presidency, the aims of the society and how EuroSpine is using online media to empower and inform patients who are faced with spinal disorders.
Ralph Rashbaum, Texas Back Institute, USA, performs the first implant of the Medtronic Spinal Cord Stimulator for leg and back pain relief.
Douglas Foster, orthopaedic surgeon at Great River Medical Center, USA, speaks on the issues faced by physicians when "fixing" previous spine surgery.
Alan Mishra, orthopaedic surgeon, Menlo Park and Palo Alto, California, performs a lumbar laminectomy.
William D Hunter, neurosurgeon, Neuro/Spine center, Gastonia, North Carolina, USA, performs a minimally invasive spine surgery in short time and with minimal blood loss.
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Becoming a spinal surgeon

Christopher Good, spine surgeon, Virginia Spine Institute, explains how a spine injury his father had when he was a child inspired him to become a spine surgeon.

Daniel Riew

Alex Vaccaro

Margareta Nordin in spine care

Margareta Nordin