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Influence of Intraoperative Neuromonitoring on the Outcomes of Surgeries for Pediatric Scoliosis in the United States

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Abstract

Background

Intraoperative neuromonitoring (IONM) is used to detect impending neurologic damage during complex spinal surgeries. Although IONM is increasingly used during pediatric scoliosis surgeries in the United States, the effect of IONM on the outcomes of such surgeries at a national level is unclear.

Methods

Using National Inpatient Sample (NIS) from 2009 to 2012, 32,305 spinal fusions performed in children 18 years old or younger of age with scoliosis were identified using ICD-9 procedure and diagnosis codes. IONM was identified using the ICD-9 procedure code 00.94. The effects of IONM use on length of stay (LOS), discharge disposition, hospital charges, and in-hospital complications were assessed using multivariate regression analysis adjusting for patient and hospital characteristics.

Results

IONM was used in 5,706 (18%) of the surgeries. IONM was associated with increased home discharge (adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.25 [95% confidence interval 1.10-1.40], p = .001). There was no difference in LOS (p = .096) and hospital charges (p = .750). Neurologic complications were noted in 52 (0.9%) surgeries using IONM and 368 (1.4%) surgeries without IONM (p = .005). Although IONM use trended toward lower risk of neurologic complications in multivariate analysis, it failed to achieve statistical significance (AOR = 0.77 [0.57-1.04], p = .084).

Conclusions

Reported use of IONM in this database was significantly less compared with other databases, suggesting that IONM might be underreported in the NIS database. Nevertheless, in this database, IONM was significantly associated with increased home discharge. Hospital charges and LOS were not affected by IONM. There was a trend toward lower risk of neurologic complications with IONM use, though this finding was not statistically significant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH, 44915, USA

    Jaiben George MBBS, Anthony C. Egger MD, Reid C. Chambers DO, Thomas E. Kuivila MD & Ryan C. Goodwin MD

  2. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Westchester Medical Center, 100 Woods Rd, Valhalla, NY, 10595, USA

    Soumabha Das MBBS

Authors
  1. Jaiben George MBBS
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  2. Soumabha Das MBBS
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  3. Anthony C. Egger MD
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  4. Reid C. Chambers DO
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  5. Thomas E. Kuivila MD
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  6. Ryan C. Goodwin MD
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jaiben George MBBS.

Additional information

Author disclosures: JG (none), SD (none), ACE (none), RCC (none), TEK (none), RCG (none).

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

No funding was obtained for this study.

The study was exempt from IRB approval as it used a publicly available database.

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George, J., Das, S., Egger, A.C. et al. Influence of Intraoperative Neuromonitoring on the Outcomes of Surgeries for Pediatric Scoliosis in the United States. Spine Deform 7, 27–32 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jspd.2018.05.013

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jspd.2018.05.013

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