Welcome

Dear colleagues

We are proud to announce the 8th NEUROspine Meeting, the advanced course of the Swiss Society of Neurosurgery SSNS supported by the Swiss Spine Institute, Swiss Society for Spinal Surgery (SGS) and the Swiss Federation of Clinical Neuro Societies SFCNS. On behalf of the organising committee, we would like to warmly welcome you to the Kursaal in Bern on March 1, 2018.

The upcoming meeting will cover several topics, from basic science to hard core surgery. In the morning, we will cover “inflammaging”, the molecular biology of the aging spine followed by a talk on structural changes in the brain of chronic pain patients. The AO-spine session will highlight “sarcopenia”, a very up to date topic, about the role of spinal musculature in the different pathological conditions throughout life.

Thereafter, we will focus on the question whether the widely accepted dogma of fusion of degenerative spinal segments to alleviate chronic pain conditions is still valid today. We will critically analyse the new avenues of truly dynamic stabilisations that have been recently introduced into the arena of spine surgery, mainly enabled by recent progress in material sciences. Larger clinical case series will be presented that will focus on the use of truly dynamic rods to treat adjacent segment disease and recurrent disc herniation. In addition, the opportunities of these new devices will be discussed regarding longer range stabilisation in scoliotic patients. Thereafter, a practical session with discussion of personal cases will be held by using electronic voting.

Many spine surgeons rarely use interspinous devices, but are they really so problematic? A review on these debated implants in addition to personal case series will be presented which should clarify the question whether interspinous implants may still be of clinical value.

The attractive program should catch the attention of neurosurgeons and orthopedic surgeons with a strong interest in spine surgery, but also anesthesiologists, neurologists, rheumatologists, interventional radiologists, chiropractors, physiotherapists and osteopaths.

We look forward to welcoming you to Bern.

Sincerely yours,

 

Prof. Dr. med. Adrian Merlo
President scientific committee
Past President SSNS

PD Dr. med. Oliver Hausmann
President SSNS