Samuel kofi atta mills biography of rory

OP01: Endoscopy in Spine Surgery

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A001: Assessing the learning process of endoscopic surgery for sciatica

Pravesh Gadjradj¹ and Biswadjiet Harhangi²

¹Neurological Surgery, Weill Cornell, New York, United States

²Neurological Surgery, Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Objective: Percutaneous transforaminal endoscopic discectomy (PTED) is gaining popularity by both surgeons and patients as a less invasive treatment option for sciatica. Concerns, however, exist for its learning curve. No previous study has assessed the learning process of PTED. Hereby we present the learning process of three surgeons learning PTED. Methods: This analysis was conducted alongside a multicenter randomized controlled trial. After attending a cadaveric workshop, three spine dedicated surgeons started performing PTED, initially under supervision of a senior surgeon. After each 5 cases, and up to case 20, the learning process was evaluated using the validated questionnaires (OSATS, GOALS) and a 10-step checklist specifically developed for PTED. Results: In total, 3 learning curve surgeons performed a total of 161 cases. Based on self-assessment, surgeons improved mostly in the domains “Time and Motion”, “Respect for Tissue”, and “Knowledge a

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