Objective To identify features of ablations and trajectories that correlate with optimal seizure control and minimize the risk of neurocognitive deficits in patients undergoing laser interstitial thermal therapy (LiTT) for mesiotemporal epilepsy (mTLE). Methods Clinical and radiographic data were reviewed from a prospectively maintained database of all patients undergoing LiTT for the treatment of mTLE at the University of Miami Hospital. Standard pre- and post-operative evaluations, including contrast-enhanced MRI and neuropsychological testing, were performed in all patients. Laser trajectory and ablation volumes were computed both by manual tracing of mesiotemporal structures and by non-rigid registration of ablation cavities to a common reference system based on 7T MRI data. Results Among 23 patients with at least one-year follow-up, 15 (65%) were free of disabling seizures since the time of their surgery. Sparing of mesial hippocampal head was significantly correlated with persistent disabling seizures (p = 0.01). A lateral trajectory through the hippocampus showed a trend for poor seizure outcome (p = 0.08). Comparison of baseline and postoperative neurocognitive testing revealed areas of both improvement and worsening, which were not associated with ablation volume or trajectory. Significance At one-year follow-up, LiTT appears to be a safe and effective tool for the treatment of mTLE, though a longer follow-up period is necessary to confirm these observations. Better understanding of the impact of ablation volume and location could potentially fine-tune this technique to improve seizure freedom rates and associated neurological and cognitive changes.

OBJECTIVEOpen spinal fusion surgery is often associated with significant blood loss, postoperative pain, and prolonged recovery times. Seeking to minimize surgical and perioperative morbidity, the authors adopted an endoscopic minimally invasive transforaminal lumbar interbody fusion (MIS-TLIF) technique performed without general anesthesia. In this report, they present data on the first 100 patients treated with this procedure.METHODSThe authors conducted a retrospective review of the first 100 patients who underwent awake endoscopic MIS-TLIF at a single institution between 2014 and 2017. Surgery was performed while the patient was sedated but without intubation or the use of general anesthetic or narcotic agents. Long-lasting (liposomal) bupivacaine was used for local analgesia. The discectomy and placement of an expandable interbody graft were performed endoscopically, followed by percutaneous pedicle screw implantation. Inclusion criteria for the procedure consisted of diagnosis of degenerative disc disease with grade I or II spondylolisthesis and evidence of spinal stenosis or nerve impingement with intractable symptomatology.RESULTSOf the first 100 patients, 56 were female and 44 were male. Single-level fusion was performed in 84 patients and two-level fusion in 16 patients. The most commonly fused level was L4–5, representing 77% of all fused levels. The mean (± standard deviation) operative time was 84.5 ± 21.7 minutes for one-level fusions and 128.1 ± 48.6 minutes for two-level procedures. The mean intraoperative blood loss was 65.4 ± 76.6 ml for one-level fusions and 74.7 ± 33.6 ml for two-level fusions. The mean length of hospital stay was 1.4 ± 1.0 days. Four deaths occurred in the 100 patients; all four of those patients died from complications unrelated to surgery. In 82% of the surviving patients, 1-year follow-up Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) data were available. The mean preoperative ODI score was 29.6 ± 15.3 and the mean postoperative ODI score was 17.2 ± 16.9, which represents a significant mean reduction in the ODI score of −12.3 using a two-tailed paired t-test (p = 0.000001). In four cases, the surgical plan was revised to include general endotracheal anesthesia intraoperatively and was successfully completed. Other complications included two cases of cage migration, one case of osteomyelitis, and one case of endplate fracture; three of these complications occurred in the first 50 cases.CONCLUSIONSThis series of the first 100 patients to undergo awake endoscopic MIS-TLIF demonstrates outcomes comparable to those reported in our earlier papers. This procedure can provide a safe and efficacious option for lumbar fusion with less morbidity than open surgery. Further refinements in surgical technique and technologies will allow for improved success.

OBJECTIVELumbar fusion is typically associated with high degrees of pain and immobility. The implementation of an enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) approach has been successful in speeding the recovery after other surgical procedures. In this paper, the authors examined the results of early implementation of ERAS for lumbar fusion.METHODSBeginning in March 2018 at the authors’ institution, all patients undergoing posterior, 1- to 3-level lumbar fusion surgery by any of 3 spine surgeons received an intraoperative injection of liposomal bupivacaine, immediate single postoperative infusion of 1-g intravenous acetaminophen, and daily postoperative visits from the authors’ multidisciplinary ERAS care team. Non–English- or non–Spanish-speaking patients and those undergoing nonelective or staged procedures were excluded. Reviews of medical records were conducted for the ERAS cohort of 57 patients and a comparison group of 40 patients who underwent the same procedures during the 6 months before implementation.RESULTSGroups did not differ significantly with regard to sex, age, or BMI (all p > 0.05). Length of stay was significantly shorter in the ERAS cohort than in the control cohort (2.9 days vs 3.8 days; p = 0.01). Patients in the ERAS group consumed significantly less oxycodone-acetaminophen than the controls on postoperative day (POD) 0 (408.0 mg vs 1094.7 mg; p = 0.0004), POD 1 (1320.0 mg vs 1708.4 mg; p = 0.04), and POD 3 (1500.1 mg vs 2105.4 mg; p = 0.03). Postoperative pain scores recorded by the physical therapy and occupational therapy teams and nursing staff each day were lower in the ERAS cohort than in controls, with POD 1 achieving significance (4.2 vs 6.0; p = 0.006). The total amount of meperidine (8.8 mg vs 44.7 mg; p = 0.003) consumed was also significantly decreased in the ERAS group, as was ondansetron (2.8 mg vs 6.0 mg; p = 0.02). Distance ambulated on each POD was farther in the ERAS cohort, with ambulation on POD 1 (109.4 ft vs 41.4 ft; p = 0.002) achieving significance.CONCLUSIONSIn this very initial implementation of the first phase of an ERAS program for short-segment lumbar fusion, the authors were able to demonstrate substantial positive effects on the early recovery process. Importantly, these effects were not surgeon-specific and could be generalized across surgeons with disparate technical predilections. The authors plan additional iterations to their ERAS protocols for continued quality improvements.

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Surgical robots have captured the interest—if not the widespread acceptance—of spinal neurosurgeons. But successful innovation, scientific or commercial, requires the majority to adopt a new practice. “Faster, better, cheaper” products should in theory conquer the market, but often fail. The psychology of change is complex, and the “follow the leader” mentality, common in the field today, lends little trust to the process of disseminating new technology. Beyond product quality, timing has proven to be a key factor in the inception, design, and execution of new technologies. Although the first robotic surgery was performed in 1985, scant progress was seen until the era of minimally invasive surgery. This movement increased neurosurgeons’ dependence on navigation and fluoroscopy, intensifying the drive for enhanced precision. Outside the field of medicine, various technology companies have made great progress in popularizing co-robots (“cobots”), augmented reality, and processor chips. This has helped to ease practicing surgeons into familiarity with and acceptance of these technologies. The adoption among neurosurgeons in training is a “follow the leader” phenomenon, wherein new surgeons tend to adopt the technology used during residency. In neurosurgery today, robots are limited to computers functioning between the surgeon and patient. Their functions are confined to establishing a trajectory for navigation, with task execution solely in the surgeon’s hands. In this review, the authors discuss significant untapped technologies waiting to be used for more meaningful applications. They explore the history and current manifestations of various modern technologies, and project what innovations may lie ahead.

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ObjectiveTo provide a review of cognitive outcomes across a full neuropsychological profile in patients who underwent laser interstitial thermal therapy (LiTT) for mesiotemporal epilepsy (mTLE).MethodsWe examined cognitive outcomes following LiTT for mTLE by reviewing a consecutive series of 26 patients who underwent dominant or nondominant hemisphere procedures. Each patient's pre- and postsurgical performance was examined for clinically significant change (>1SD improvement or decline on standardized scores), with a neuropsychologic battery that included measures of language, memory, executive functioning, and processing speed.ResultsPresurgical performance was largely consistent with previous research, where patients suffering from dominant hemisphere epilepsies demonstrated deficits in verbal learning and memory, whereas patients with nondominant hemisphere scored lower on visually mediated tests. Case-by-case review comparing presurgical to postsurgical scores revealed clinically significant improvement in both dominant and nondominant patients in learning and memory and other aspects of cognition such as processing speed and executive functioning. Of the few patients who did experience clinically significant decline following LiTT, a greater proportion had undergone dominant hemisphere procedures.ConclusionsCompared with the outcome literature of dominant open anterior temporal lobectomies (ATLs), where postsurgical decline has been documented in up to 40%–60% of cases, our LiTT case series exhibited a much lower incidence of postoperative language or verbal memory decline. Moreover, promising rates of postoperative improvements were also observed across multiple cognitive domains. Future studies exploring cognitive outcomes following LiTT should include comprehensive neuropsychological findings, rather than only select domains, as clinically significant change can occur in areas other than those typically associated with mesiotemporal structures.

Dynamic spinal cord compression has been investigated for several years, but until the advent of open MRI, the use of dynamic MRI (dMRI) did not gain popularity. Several publications have shown that cervical cord compression is both static and dynamic. On many occasions the evaluation of cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) is straightforward, but patients are frequently encountered with a significantly worse clinical examination than would be suggested by radiological images. In this paper, we present an extensive review of the literature in order to describe the importance of dMRI in various settings and applications. A detailed literature review was performed in the Medline and Pubmed databases using the terms “cervical spondylotic myelopathy”, “dynamic MRI”, “kinetic MRI”, and “myelomalalcia” for the period of 1980-2016. The study was limited to English language, human subjects, case series, retrospective studies, prospective reports, and clinical trials. Reviews, case reports, cadaveric studies, editorials, and commentaries were excluded. The literature search yielded 180 papers, 19 of which met inclusion criteria. However, each paper had evaluated results and outcomes in different ways. It was not possible to compile them for meta-analysis or pooled data evaluation. Instead, we evaluated individual studies and present them for discussion. We describe a number of parameters evaluated in 2661 total patients, including dynamic changes to spinal cord and canal dimensions, transient compression of the cord with changes in position, and the effects of position on the intervertebral disc. dMRI is a useful tool for understanding the development of CSM. It has found several applications in the diagnosis and preoperative evaluation of many patients, as well as certain congenital dysplasias and Hirayama disease. It is useful in correlating symptoms with the dynamic changes only noted on dMRI, and has reduced the incidence of misdiagnosis of myelopathy.