Recently, I had the honor of being the co-chairman of an annual spine meeting hosted by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.  The focus of this meeting was “Contemporary Techniques in Spinal Surgery 2008”.

 

At this meeting I gave presentations on spinal decompression and reconstruction techniques, including; ACDF, corpectomies and struts.  I also presented information that compared the cervical artificial replacement procedure with the spinal fusion.  Additionally, I was a lab instructor – which provided hands-on training to orthopaedic surgeons. A few procedures reviewed included X-Stop – a procedure which utilizes a device in spine surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis; XLIF – this is a minimally invasive spine surgery procedure used to treat back pain that is caused by degenerative disc disease.