Dana A. Leonard

TL;DR: This study demonstrates the importance of including factors related to the overall health of a patient, in addition to parameters surrounding their cancer diagnosis, to better prognosticate survival.

TL;DR: This study demonstrates the clinical accuracy of the NESMS score for predicting short-term major morbidity and mortality following metastatic spinal surgery in an independent cohort of patients collected from centers across the United States.

TL;DR: Improved nutritional status and ambulatory function may enhance postoperative survival among individuals who undergo surgical intervention for spinal metastases, and this effort is one of the first to identify predictors of acute post operative survival in a large series of patients treated for spinal cancer.

TL;DR: The results of this randomized trial suggest equivalent clinical outcomes irrespective of the length of post-operative restriction, if patients are deemed at low risk for a reherniation event they may be confidence that early return to activity at 2 weeks will not compromise outcomes and may not adversely impact the risk of rehernation.

TL;DR: In this propensity-matched cohort, the addition of MRI to CT alone identified missed injuries at a rate of 8%.