Radiation Exposure to the Spine Surgeon During Fluoroscopically Assisted Pedicle Screw Insertion
Bibliographic record
Abstract
STUDY DESIGN: In vitro study to determine occupational radiation exposure during lumbar fluoroscopy. OBJECTIVES: To assess radiation exposure to the spine surgeon during fluoroscopically assisted thoracolumbar pedicle screw placement. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: Occupational radiation exposure during a variety of fluoroscopically assisted musculoskeletal procedures has been previously evaluated. No prior study has assessed fluoroscopy-related radiation exposure to the spine surgeon. METHODS: Bilateral pedicle screw placement (T11-S1) was performed in six cadavers using lateral fluoroscopic imaging. Radiation dose rates to the surgeon's neck, torso, and dominant hand were measured with dosimeter badges and thermolucent dosimeter (TLD) rings. Radiation levels were also quantified at various distances from the dorsal lumbar surface using an ion chamber radiation survey meter. RESULTS: The mean dose rate to the neck was 8.3 mrem/min. The dose rate to the torso was greatest when the surgeon was positioned ipsilateral to the beam source (53.3 mrem/min, compared with 2.2 mrem/min on the contralateral side). The average hand dose rate was 58.2 mrem/min. A significant increase in hand dose rate was associated with placement of screws ipsilateral to the beam source (P = 0.0005) and larger specimens (P = 0.0007). Radiation levels significantly decreased as distance from the beam source and dorsal body surface increased. The greatest levels of radiation were noted on the side where the primary radiograph beam entered the cadaver. CONCLUSION: Fluoroscopically assisted thoracolumbar pedicle screw placement exposes the spine surgeon to significantly greater radiation levels than other, nonspinal musculoskeletal procedures that involve the use of a fluoroscope. In fact, dose rates are up to 10-12 times greater. Spine surgeons performing fluoroscopically assisted thoracolumbar procedures should monitor their annual radiation exposure. Measures to reduce radiation exposure and surgeon awareness of high-exposure body and hand positions are certainly called for.
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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 | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| 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) | 0.002 | 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".