PhD Student
Davor is an Orthopaedic Spinal Surgeon working at Macquarie University Hospital Orthopaedic Department with a keen interest in scoliosis in children and adults. He graduated with an undergraduate Medical degree from University of Newcastle in 1998, Completed Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Fellowship in Orthopaedic Surgery in 2008, and Completed prestigious spine fellowship training in Orthopaedic and Neurosurgical Spine Program at University of British Columbia in 2008/9. He also completed a further 6-month Fellowship training at BC Children’s Hospital 2009.
KATIE PELLAND Visiting PhD student
DR ELIZABETH CLARKE Visiting postdoctoral fellow
ALICE HATT Research assistant
ALICE PONG PhD student
DR PETER BURKE Postdoctoral fellow
To describe a technique for measuring accuracy of intraoperative image guidance systems in spine surgery. By using intraoperatively placed mini-screw fiducials, the surgeon may check and quantify the underlying system accuracy both initially and throughout the surgery. In the future, "auto-adjust" functions may be integrated into the computer software to automatically recalibrate the system when a probe is placed into the fiducials without the need for rescanning.
Patients with positive methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus culture or those with distant site infection such as bacteremia were strong predictors of need for multiple I&D. Presence of instrumentation, location of surgery in the posterior lumbar spine, and use of nonautograft bone graft material predicted multiple I&D. Diabetes also proved to be the most significant medical comorbidity for multiple I&D. The validation of this predictive model revealed excellent PPV and good NPV with appropriately chosen probability cutoff points. This study forms the basis for an evidence-based classification system, the Postoperative Infection Treatment Score for the Spine that stratifies patients who require surgery for SSI, based on specific spine, patient, infection, and surgical factors to assess a low, indeterminate, and high risk for the need for multiple I&D.
The purpose of this study is to determine whether applying Enneking's principles to surgical management of primary bone tumors of the spine significant decreases local recurrence and/or mortality. Surgery results in a significant reduction in local recurrence when primary bone tumors of the spine are resected with EA margins. Local recurrence has a high concordance with mortality in resection of these tumors. A significant decrease in mortality occurs when EA surgery is used.