• François Waterkeyn, Chibuikem A Ikwuegbuenyi, Julie Woodfield, Fabian Sommer, Juma Magogo, Beverly Cheserem, Alexander J Schupper, Hamisi K Shabani, Ibrahim Hussain, Alaaeldin Azmi Ahmad, Massimo Balsano, Halinder Mangat, and Roger Härtl.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, New-York Presbyterian, Och Spine, New York, New York, USA; Department of Neurosciences, Grand Hôpital de Charleroi, Charleroi, Belgium. Electronic address: soyans26@gmail.com.
• World Neurosurg. 2023 Dec 1; 180: e550e559e550-e559.

BackgroundIn sub-Saharan Africa, the estimated prevalence of scoliosis ranges from 3.3% to 5.5%. The management of these deformities is restricted due to lack of infrastructure and access to deformity spine surgeons. Utilizing surgical camps has been demonstrated to be efficient in transferring skills to low-resource environments; however, this has not been documented concerning deformity surgery.MethodsWe conducted a cross-sectional study. The scoliosis camp was held at a major referral spine center in East Africa. We documented information about the organization of the course. We also collected clinical and demographic patient data. Finally, we assessed the knowledge and confidence among surgeon participants on the management scoliosis.ResultsThe camp lasted 5 days and consisted of lectures and case discussions, followed by casting and surgical sessions. Five patients were operated during the camp. All the patients in the study were diagnosed with AIS, except one with a congenital deformity. The primary curve in the spine was in the thoracic region for all patients. Six months postoperative Scoliosis Research Society-22R Scoring System (SRS-22R) score ranged from 3.3-4.5/5. 87.5% of the participants found the course content satisfactory.ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first time an African scoliosis camp has been established. The study highlights the difficulty of conducting such a course and illustrates the feasibility of executing these complex surgeries in a resource-limited environment.Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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