The Need for Clinical Practice Guidelines in Assessing and Managing Perioperative Neurologic Deficit: Results from a Survey of the AOSpine International Community

OBJECTIVES: There is no standardized approach to assess and manage perioperative neurologic deficit (PND) in patients undergoing spinal surgery. This survey aimed to evaluate the awareness and usage of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) as well as investigate how surgeons performing spine surgeries feel about and manage PND and how they perceive the value of developing CPGs for the management of PND. METHODS: An invitation to participate was sent to the AOSpine International community. Questions were related to the awareness, usage of CPGs, and demographics. Results from the entire sample and subgroups were analyzed. RESULTS: Of 770 respondents, 659 (85.6%) reported being aware of the existence of guideline(s), and among those, 578 (87.7%) acknowledged using guideline(s). Overall, 58.8% of surgeons reported not feeling comfortable managing a patient who wakes up quadriplegic after an uneventful multilevel posterior cervical decompression with instrumented fusion. Although 22.9% would consider an immediate return to the operating room, the other 77.1% favored conducting some kind of investigation/medical intervention first, such as performing magnetic resonance imaging (85.9%), administrating high-dose corticosteroids (50.2%), or increasing the mean arterial pressure (44.7%). Overall, 90.6% of surgeons believed that CPGs for the management of PND would be useful and 94.4% would be either likely or extremely likely to use these CPGs in their clinical practice. CONCLUSIONS: Most respondents are aware and routinely use CPGs in their practice. Most surgeons performing spine surgeries reported not feeling comfortable managing PND. However, they highly value the creation and are likely to use CPGs in its management.