Lower Extremity Somatosensory Evoked Potentials Predict Functional Outcomes in Complete Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury.

Background: Traumatic cervical spinal cord injury (tCSCI) is often a debilitating injury, making early prognosis important for medical and surgical planning. Currently, the best early predictors of prognosis are physical examination, imaging studies, and patient demographics. Despite these factors, patient outcomes continue to vary significantly.

Utility of Seated Lateral Radiographs in the Diagnosis and Classification of Lumbar Degenerative Spondylolisthesis.

Study Design: Retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: Our goal was to determine which radiographic images are most essential for degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS) classification and instability detection.

Overview Of Literature: The heterogeneity in DS requires multiple imaging views to evaluate vertebral translation, disc space, slip angle, and instability.

Perioperative Dexamethasone Does Not Reduce Postoperative Opioid Use Following Anterior Cervical Discectomy and Fusion.

Objective: To determine if dexamethasone administration reduced narcotic consumption during hospitalization and to evaluate if patients who received dexamethasone refilled fewer opioid prescriptions postoperatively.

Methods: All adult patients who underwent primary elective 1- to 4-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion at a single center were retrospectively identified. Prescription opioid use was collected from governmental online prescription drug monitoring programs, and in-hospital opioid use was collected from each patient's medication administration record and recorded as morphine milligram equivalents (MMEs).

Evaluation of Hospital Compliance With Federal Price Transparency Regulations and Variability of Negotiated Rates for Spinal Fusion.

Introduction: To improve price transparency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires hospitals to post accessible pricing data for common elective procedures along with all third-party-negotiated rates. We aimed to evaluate hospital compliance with CMS regulations for both price estimators and machine-readable files for spinal fusions and to evaluate factors contributing to variability in hospital-negotiated pricing.

Methods: We reviewed the top 100 orthopaedic hospitals ranked by US News & World Report to assess compliance with CMS price transparency regulations for all spine diagnosis-related groups.