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Medicine and Health Sciences Commons

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Surgery

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

Series

2007

Articles 1 - 1 of 1

Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Regional Variability In Use Of A Novel Assessment Of Thoracolumbar Spine Fractures: United States Versus International Surgeons., John Ratliff, Neel Anand, Alexander R Vaccaro, Moe R Lim, Joon Y Lee, Paul Arnold, James Harrop, Raja Rampersaud, Christopher M Bono, Ralf H Gahr Sep 2007

Regional Variability In Use Of A Novel Assessment Of Thoracolumbar Spine Fractures: United States Versus International Surgeons., John Ratliff, Neel Anand, Alexander R Vaccaro, Moe R Lim, Joon Y Lee, Paul Arnold, James Harrop, Raja Rampersaud, Christopher M Bono, Ralf H Gahr

Department of Neurosurgery Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Considerable variability exists in clinical approaches to thoracolumbar fractures. Controversy in evaluation and nomenclature contribute to this confusion, with significant differences found between physicians, between different specialties, and in different geographic regions. A new classification system for thoracolumbar injuries, the Thoracolumbar Injury Severity Score (TLISS), was recently described by Vaccaro. No assessment of regional differences has been described. We report regional variability in use of the TLISS system between United States and non-US surgeons.

METHODS: Twenty-eight spine surgeons (8 neurosurgeons and 20 orthopedic surgeons) reviewed 56 clinical thoracolumbar injury case histories, which included pertinent imaging studies. Cases were classified …