ARGOSpine: Not Just Another Meeting
BY JOHN MCCORMICK, FEBRUARY 9, 2009
We have often heard the complaint from spine surgeons that there are "too many spine meetings these days". Our accumulating frequent flyer points support the notion. The Paris-based annual ARGOSpine Symposium is different, however and deserves some distinction from the pack in our view.
The principal reason we like this decidedly scientific meeting is that takes a mulitdisciplinary approach to complex spine problems. ARGOSpine meetings normally underscore a scientific theme where multiple pathologies and challenging surgical situations are discussed under that year's central framework.
This year's theme was medical imaging which is a critical topic that rarely gets coverage at your typical spine meeting. The resulting dialogue was an appraisal of tumors, deformity, vascular issues, trauma, infection, C1-C2 instability, degenerative issues, revision surgery and so forth - all under the lens of imaging. The animated and sometimes vigorous exchanges by surgeons, and even eminent radiologists from all over the world, netted some valuable insights that we normally don't get at the typical meetings.
Some of the takeaways were obvious and some were subtle. Examples include the pitfalls in finding pain generators (disc/facet/other?), selection of optimal imaging modality (soft tissue or bone?), the role of the radiologist (a valued partner or co-culprit in failed back surgery?), when to image in trauma cases. The list goes on and we were maybe not so surprised to hear how often there is a real difficulty correlating imaging findings to the real clinical condition.
In keeping with the imaging theme, the ARGOSpine thesis award this year went to Sabina Champain who conducted a multi-center multi-year (2-14 years) retrospective on over 1,000 patient records concerning a variety of degenerative issues. Quantitative software driven analysis of images were useful in assessing long term saggital alignment, spine geometry and kinematics along with (and compared to) pain and quality of life scores. One finding of interest embedded in the study was the possibility that dynamic stabilization devices contribute to the reduction of adjacent level disease. The results also showed the impact of psychosocial factors of the patient's perception of outcome.
All of the points raised at the meeting did raise the question about advancements in imaging technology which the conference unfortunately tended to shy away from. Maybe that's a good thing at the end of the day. All too often, especially in this financial climate, surgeons and hospitals don't often have access to the latest advancements in imaging technology and are forced to work with what is currently available.
From that standpoint, ARGOSpine addressed vital concerns this year.
Disclosure: HealthpointCapital, LLC is a corporate sponsor of the ARGOSpine Symposium
