Lumbar Fusion in Octogenarians
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In Brief Study Design. Retrospective chart review of prospectively collected data from 2 nonrandomized, nonconcurrent cohorts. Objective. Early results of 2 lumbar interbody fusion procedures—open posterior lumbar interbody fusion (PLIF) and minimally invasive (extreme lateral interbody fusion [XLIF])—were compared in octogenarians to demonstrate the safety of each in the extreme elderly populations. Summary of Background Data. Although spinal pathologies are common in the elderly patients, additional health conditions often preclude operative treatment because anesthesia, blood loss, and recovery are too demanding. Minimally invasive approaches reduce procedure-related morbidity and recovery time. Methods. In our single-site prospective series of XLIF patients, 40 were identified as those aged ≥80 years with a minimum of 3-month follow-up. A complete, retrospective review of surgical patients treated in the same practice with traditional open posterior (PLIF) approach found 20 patients aged ≥80 years. Comparisons were made between groups to identify differences in morbidity and mortality rates. Results. No clinically significant differences in demographics, diagnoses, or comorbidities were found between groups. Complication rate, blood loss/transfusion rate, and hospital stay were significantly lower in the minimally invasive surgery (MIS) group (P < 0.0001). MIS patients left the hospital an average of 4 days earlier than the open PLIF patients, most discharged home (92.5% XLIF vs. 0% PLIF) rather than to skilled nursing facilities. Six deaths occurred in the PLIF follow-up, 3 within 3 months postoperatively; there was 1 death at 6 months postoperatively XLIF. Conclusion. Surgical treatment need not be withheld on the basis of age; elderly patients can successfully be treated using MIS techniques, and are—in our experience—among the most satisfied with their outcomes, enjoying significant improvements in pain, mobility, and quality of life. A retrospective chart review of prospectively collected outcomes after lumbar interbody fusion surgery in patients aged ≥80 years in 2 nonconcurrent surgical cohorts shows that minimally invasive surgery (extreme lateral interbody fusion approach) results in fewer complications, quicker recovery, and improved quality of life compared with a traditional open (posterior lumbar interbody fusion) procedure.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".