Spine surgery and clinical research in Italy
- PDF / 107,089 Bytes
- 2 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 66 Downloads / 220 Views
EDITORIAL
Spine surgery and clinical research in Italy Claudio Lamartina • Giuseppe M. V. Barbagallo
Received: 6 September 2013 / Accepted: 6 September 2013 / Published online: 24 September 2013 Ó Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
In this fourth special issue dedicated to the Societa` Italiana di Chirurgia Vertebrale, GIS, the so-called Italian Supplement of the European Spine Journal, the reader can find a short selection of the current surgical trends as well as of the spine-related research activities in Italy. The concept of research in the spine field is broad and the last decade has been testimony to worldwide significant efforts [1, 2] both in basic [3–5] and in clinical research activities [6–9], aimed at ultimately improving patients’ care. Indeed, either basic or clinical research has been fostered with the aim to arrive at clinically useful conclusions. Such strategy has been adopted by all major national and international spine societies. In Italy, like in many other countries, spine surgery is continuing to undergo profound changes, with the stable number of orthopedic spine surgery and that of spine neurosurgeons rising. This is not only a ‘‘social change’’ but, most importantly, a ‘‘cultural’’ one. Neurosurgeons are traditionally trained in microsurgical techniques and soft-tissue handling surgical procedures; however, they may lack a specific knowledge of bone biology and biomechanics, two cornerstones of spine surgery, which are well known to orthopedic surgeons. Such intrinsic differences may also be one of the causes influencing the apparently different clinical and surgical attitudes, i.e., spinal neurosurgeons being prone to adopt and boost minimally invasive techniques and computer-guided surgery, while orthopedic spine surgeons favoring more biological and biomechanical topics, like the sagittal balance. Indeed, C. Lamartina (&) II Spine Surgery, IRCSS Istituto Ortopedico Galeazzi, Via Riccardo Galeazzi, 4, 20161 Milan, Italy e-mail: [email protected] G. M. V. Barbagallo Division of Neurosurgery, Policlinico ‘‘G. Rodolico’’ University Hospital, Via S. Sofia, 78, 95123 Catania, Italy
this is only an apparent distinction, as it is always more common to find spine specialists harboring the different competencies [10]. The papers accepted for publication in this Supplement deal mostly with clinical research topics and span across all spinal topics (degenerative, deformity, trauma and tumor). A quick look at this volume’s index will make the reader aware of the significant attention dedicated by Italian spine surgeons to the sagittal balance topic and, in general, to the deformity field. The benefits and risks of contemporary techniques, like computer-guided and minimally invasive surgeries, particularly in trauma patients, have been analyzed in other papers. Studies dealing with surgical and radiological techniques used in cervical spine degenerative disease, focusing also on less common conditions, or in spinal tumor cases have been included as well. The basic research s
Data Loading...
