Use of computer-assisted navigation increased over time in thoracolumbar fusion
Results presented at the North American Spine Society Annual Meeting showed a significant upward trend in the use of computer-assisted navigation in thoracolumbar spinal fusion over time.
Calista L. Dominy and colleagues collected demographic, comorbidity and cost data among patients undergoing elective thoracolumbar spinal fusion that used intraoperative computer-assisted navigation from 2015 to 2018. Researchers used linear regression analysis to assess the association between time and the number of patients receiving navigated thoracolumbar fusion, as well as the association between time and the total charges to patients.
Among 27,093 thoracolumbar cases, Dominy noted utilization of navigation significantly increased over time.
“However, like we established at the beginning of the talk, thoracolumbar spinal cases in general are increasing over time,” Dominy said in her presentation here. “Therefore, in order to account for this potentially confounding factor, we normalized the total number of thoracolumbar fusion cases that use navigation to the total number of thoracolumbar fusion cases in general in a given year.”
After normalization, Dominy noted the increased utilization of navigation over time remained statistically significant. Although results showed an increase in total charges for navigated thoracolumbar cases over time, the trend was not statistically significant, according to Dominy.
“Additionally, we compared to cases that did not use navigation and we found that, at each time point, the cost of navigated cases exceeded or matched the cost of non-navigated cases grossly,” Dominy said. “That difference was also not statistically significant.”
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Dominy CL, et al. Paper 38. Presented at: North American Spine Social Annual Meeting. Sept. 29-Oct. 2, 2021; Boston (hybrid meeting).
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