The “Friday peak” in surgical referrals for spinal metastases: lessons not learned. A retrospective analysis of 201 consecutive cases at a tertiary center

Background Spinal cord compression and fracture are potential complications of spine metastasis (SM). Rapid management by an expert team can reduce these adverse developments. Delays in seeking therapeutic advices, which lead to the need for sub-optimal emergency procedures, were already demonstrate...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Acta neurochirurgica 2019-06, Vol.161 (6), p.1069-1076
Main Authors: Debono, Bertrand, Braticevic, Cécile, Sabatier, Pascal, Dutertre, Guillaume, Latorzeff, Igor, Hamel, Olivier
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aged
Cancer
Complications
Compression
Emergencies
Emergency medical services
Emergency procedures
Female
Humans
Interventional Radiology
Lesions
Male
Medicine
Medicine & Public Health
Metastases
Metastasis
Middle Aged
Minimally Invasive Surgery
Neurological diseases
Neurology
Neuroradiology
Neurosurgery
Neurosurgical Procedures - standards
Neurosurgical Procedures - statistics & numerical data
Original Article - Spine - Other
Patients
Quality Improvement
Retrospective Studies
Spinal cord
Spinal Cord Compression - surgery
Spinal Neoplasms - secondary
Spinal Neoplasms - surgery
Spine
Spine - Other
Surgery
Surgical Orthopedics
Telemedicine
Tertiary Healthcare - standards
Tertiary Healthcare - statistics & numerical data
Upstream
Vertebrae
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Background Spinal cord compression and fracture are potential complications of spine metastasis (SM). Rapid management by an expert team can reduce these adverse developments. Delays in seeking therapeutic advices, which lead to the need for sub-optimal emergency procedures, were already demonstrated nearly 20 years ago. We aimed to analyze the current weak points of referrals for vertebral metastasis so as to improve the care pathways. Methods We retrospectively reviewed the data of all patients admitted on an emergency or elective basis who underwent palliative surgery for the treatment of neoplastic spine lesions in our institution (tertiary referral neurosurgical unit) between January 2009 and December 2016. Results This retrospective study included 201 patients, 121 men and 80 women (mean age 65.1 years ± 10.9). Cancer was known for 59.7% of cases. Patients were neurologically asymptomatic in 52.7% of cases (Frankel E), and 123 (60.7%) were hospitalized for emergency reasons, including 51 (41.5% of emergencies) on a Friday ( p  
ISSN:0001-6268
0942-0940
DOI:10.1007/s00701-019-03919-z