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Impact of spine surgery complications on costs associated with management of adult spinal deformity

  • Complications in Spine Surgery (E Klineberg, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Reviews in Musculoskeletal Medicine Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A better understanding of the consequences of spine surgery complications is warranted to optimize patient-reported outcomes and contain the rising health care costs associated with the management of adult spinal deformity (ASD). We systematically searched PubMed and Scopus databases using keywords “adult spinal deformity surgery,” “complications,” and “cost” for published studies on costs of complications associated with spinal surgery, with a particular emphasis on ASD and scoliosis. In the 17 articles reviewed, we identified 355,354 patients with 11,148 reported complications. Infection was the most commonly reported complication, with an average treatment cost ranging from $15,817 to $38,701. Hospital costs for patients with deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary thromboembolism, and surgical site infection were 2.3 to 3.1 times greater than for patients without those complications. An effort to collect and characterize data on cost of complications is encouraged, which may help health care providers to identify potential resources to limit complications and overall costs.

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Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: •• Of major importance

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Correspondence to Samrat Yeramaneni.

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Samrat Yeramaneni and Chessie Robinson declare that they have no conflict of interest. Richard Hostin reports personal fees from DePuy Synthes and grants from DePuy Synthes, NuVasive, Seeger, DJO, and K2M, outside the submitted work.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Complications in Spine Surgery

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Yeramaneni, S., Robinson, C. & Hostin, R. Impact of spine surgery complications on costs associated with management of adult spinal deformity. Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med 9, 327–332 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12178-016-9352-9

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