[The morbidity of the posterior iliac crest bone graft harvesting could be an overestimated fact. Study in patients with open posterolateral lumbar fusion].

Introduction: spinal fusion is used to treat, among other pathologies, the degenerative intervertebral disc disease. Autologous iliac crest bone grafting is the golden standard treatment for increasing the rate of fusion; however, it isn't free of complications.

Objectives: to investigate whether patients who have posterior iliac crest graft harvesting and are blinded to the donor site, can identify from which side the graft was harvested, and whether the intensity of this pain is related to the amount of graft obtained.

[Is the Michigan State University lumbar disc herniation classification reliable among spine surgeons?].

Introduction: there are numerous classifications for herniated discs, such classifications guide professionals about the severity of the lesion, the possible clinical picture of the patient, the most appropriate treatment and are undoubtedly a predictive tool to project the possible results of the therapies used. The main purpose of this work is to validate the inter- and intra-observer reliability of the Michigan State University (MSU) classification among the spine surgeons of our service and also to know the risk factors associated with the patients who underwent lumbar discectomy, the most affected disc level, the clinical presentation and the previous treatments performed in the patients treated by our team.

Material And Methods: 50 nuclear magnetic resonance (MR) images in axial T2 section corresponding to the "maximum disc herniation" level were selected from patients diagnosed and submitted to meningo-radicular release surgery and single level lumbar discectomy retrospectively in the last two years from our database; these images were distributed among three spine surgeons of our institution.