Spinal deformity is a three-dimensional pathology, leading to coronal and sagittal plane decompensation, and results in clinical complaints, neurological deficits, deformity progression, trunk imbalance and cardiopulmonary dysfunction[17–20]. Treatment of severe spinal deformity is one of the ultimate challenges for spine surgeons[21]. Literatures reported the incidence of neurological complications in spinal deformity correction surgeries was 1%-27%[5, 9, 22–24], and with regard to new neurological deficits, the incidence was reported as 0.178%-9.4%, and 33.6% of it was related to spinal instruments[9, 22]. A systematic review concluded that the rate of screw malposition in scoliosis was 15.7% using CT scan[25]. Hence an accurate and solid screw placement is crucial to achieve a satisfactory and safe correction. Severe spinal deformity has a high risk of screw malposition due to the complex anatomy and vertebra malformation[26, 27]. As reported, Severe spinal deformity was mostly developed without treatment in pediatric period and as described, most of them were idiopathic scoliosis[28]. Majority of severe spine deformity patients suffered from a long-time pathological progress, which caused the pathomorphological changes of the spine including vertebral body or pedicle malformation and thus, we confirmed it could increase the difficulty of spine morphological identification and risks of pedicle screw malposition. With the purpose to improve the accuracy of screw placement in severe spinal deformity, we have explored the feasibility of CASIP in severe spinal deformity. In our series, the accuracy of CASIP group was superior to Non-CASIP group as 92%. We could detect that pedicle screw malposition was mainly distributed in the thoracic spine, which was mostly apical region resulting in extremely rotation and malformation. With CASIP, we could easily recognize whether there existed any malformation as surgical traps for screw placement, and design optimal angle and entry point for inserting. Besides screw related matched parameters were supplied, we also made 3D-printed model as intuitive reference to help the surgeon to insert pedicle screw more accurately during the surgery.
Computer-assisted virtual surgical planning has been reported in hip fracture, femoral fracture, orthopedic oncology and spine surgery[29–32]. Metz et al. reported a case in regard to the application of computer-assisted surgical planning to revision surgery for congenital kyphosis[10]. This technique provided a safe and satisfactory planning in osteotomy and clinical results. Sun et al. reported the usage of this technique in anterior controllable anterior-displacement and fusion surgery for ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament, and the author demonstrated that the virtual surgical procedure was a feasible and powerful clinically tool for appropriate surgical planning[11]. These researches demonstrated that application of computer-assisted preoperative surgical planning was an optimal tool for surgical planning and desired results were achieved. The Mimics Medical software was a pragmatic and useful tool for CT data reconstruction, 3D printed technique and anatomy measurement. You et al. have reported the application of the software in thoracoscopic anatomical sublobectomy, and demonstrated it was a quick and accurate software for formulating a personalized anatomical surgical plan[33]. We utilized this software to design optimal screw inserting angle, entry point and size for severe spine deformity cases, and this method provided the surgeon an early estimate of the screw and provided matched data combined 3D printed model could help the surgeon quickly identify and solve the difficulty of screw placement.
Parker et al. reported an incidence of 0.22% for PS touching forward major vessels[34]. Despite the rate was rare, it would be catastrophic for patients and surgeons. As we have demonstrated, CASIP could also help us measure the length and width of preset screw so that we could anticipate proper screw size for fixation to avoid aortal or vessel injury forward the vertebra efficiently. To reduce the risk of aortal or vessel injury in the correction surgery, the length of the selected screw was important due to vertebra rotation and malformation[35, 36]. Normally, we would take more intraoperative fluoroscopes to ensure we have selected optimal screw, however, vertebral rotation did increase the amount of fluoroscopes and decrease the accuracy of the assessment. With preoperative measurement, we could record the accurate size of the screw, and thus, the operation time and radiation for screw position checking were saved, and that was the reason we thought about why surgical time was much shorted in CASIP group. Also, the results showed better outcome for puncturing screw in CASIP group.
What we need to pay attention to was that virtual surgical planning was practical but not the same as the real operation. This procedure was operated based on CT scan without regard to muscles and tissue, so it might be different when the patient was be anesthetized and placed prone on a surgical table, and matched data of angle and entry point would be critical. The lateral and cephalic angles were relative constant based on the anatomy. Hence, we would be careful to measure and check the angle and entry point for simulated screws to ensure it would be accurate for the surgery. But as we mentioned, 5 patients were excluded due to planned implementation rate was less than 80%. In some of these cases, muscle and tissue exposure were insufficient, and lateral angle applied was not applicable.
There are some limitations in the present research. First, this was a pilot study, and the sample size were relatively small. Randomized controlled trials with large samples are warranted. Second, the utilization of the software required an experienced clinical surgeon because specific anatomy need to be recognized, thus more preoperative planning time would be required.