Best book on spine surgery

[Guest]

Can anyone recommend a good book for spine surgery for residency and beyond? I’m looking for a book that isn’t too inundated with angles and biomechanics and can give practical evidence-based advice on when to consider decompression v. disc replacement v. fusion etc. I know much of what we do in spine surgery is dealer’s choice but there are certainly intelligent arguments to be made for surgery A v. surgery B v. no surgery.

[Guest]

Tumialan

[Guest]

(06-26-2022, 11:49 PM)Guest Wrote:

Can anyone recommend a good book for spine surgery for residency and beyond? I’m looking for a book that isn’t too inundated with angles and biomechanics and can give practical evidence-based advice on when to consider decompression v. disc replacement v. fusion etc. I know much of what we do in spine surgery is dealer’s choice but there are certainly intelligent arguments to be made for surgery A v. surgery B v. no surgery.

Benzel’s biomechanics of spine stabilization. It does talk about the biomechanics though it doesn’t drone on endlessly about the latest angle that the ISSG is claiming now best defines when a spine is properly balanced. To avoid all discussion of angles and biomechanics is to be willfully ignorant though, so you have to have some understanding of why you generally don’t stop fusions at junctional levels, why you don’t just jam in the biggest arthroplasty implant you can. Benzel’s book is pretty good, though it doesn’t go too much into MIS stuff. Tumialán’s MIS book is a good technique book. Provides some arguments for why MIS is better, but if you are looking for a book to discuss why you should do anterior vs posterior for a certain cervical degen case, or when you should fix the degen scoli vs do a simple foraminotomy (eg if the patient is old and frail and has predominately a radicular pain with imaging showing foraminal compression at 1-2 level on the curve concavity), then I’d argue for Benzel. The virtual spine series and the Swedish spine videos on YouTube also have some good ones.