World Neurosurg
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Racial disparities, such as differential treatment and provider bias, negatively affect quality of life for minority patients. However, literature evaluating racial/ethnic differences in the treatment of primary spinal cord tumors (SCTs), a rare condition relying primarily on neurosurgical care, is lacking. ⋯ African Americans were less likely to receive surgical intervention for treatment of primary SCTs compared with whites. Hispanic patients faced longer hospital stays. These disparities may be attributed to compromised access, provider attitudes and biases, communication barriers, or historical distrust in the medical community: issues that health care reform should address.
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Patient satisfaction is becoming an increasing factor worthy of consideration when evaluating the surgical quality. The correlation between patient satisfaction and surgical outcomes 5 years after cervical hybrid surgery (HS), which incorporates anterior cervical decompression and fusion and cervical disk arthroplasty techniques in multilevel cervical degenerative disk disease, has not been evaluated. ⋯ HS is an effective and safe procedure for the treatment of multilevel cervical degenerative disk disease. Such a surgical construct offers postoperative improvement on pain levels and health-related quality of life.
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Case Reports
Intraoperative use of a cone beam CT in the treatment of atlanto-axial rotatory subluxation: a case report.
Atlantoaxial rotatory subluxation (AARS) is a rare pathological condition of the upper cervical spine. It can be caused by multiple mechanisms, including minor neck manipulations. Children are more prone owing to the weaker periarticular soft tissue and a steeper slant of the C1 facet plane against the vertical axis of the dens. If AARS does not resolve spontaneously, a normal position of the atlantoaxial joint must be achieved by reduction and stabilization. ⋯ Complete reduction of the AARS was achieved with closed intraoral reduction. We used intraoperative cone-beam CT to confirm complete reduction. We found cone-beam CT to be a very useful tool.