Estimating the Cost of Spinopelvic Complications After Adult Spinal Deformity Surgery [Letter]

Dear editor

The article entitled “Estimating the Cost of Spinopelvic Complications After Adult Spinal Deformity Surgery” is very interesting because it contains the following advantages: 1) highlighting an important aspect but often less attention, namely the economic impact of spinopelvic construction failure after adult spinal deformity (ASD) surgery; 2) estimate additional costs associated with complications that include costs per patient and overall impact on the health system; 3) highlight the importance of techniques and devices/procedures to reduce the rate of spinopelvic failure after ASD surgery, as it has implications for economic and health aspects; 4) propose guidelines for reporting spinopelvic complications to standardize the definition of spinopelvic failure after ASD surgery.¹

Researchers have also identified limitations that need to be addressed to be addressed in further research such as: 1) heterogeneous definitions of spinopelvic failure after ASD surgery which may affect the accuracy of additional cost estimates and reporting of previous studies; 2) the spread and variety of failure reports in previous studies; 3) the model is sensitive to key parameter estimates indicating that additional cost estimates may vary depending on the assumptions used.¹ The things above show that researchers have planned to carry out more careful follow-up research in order to obtain more accurate conclusions that can be recommended for related health service institutions.

However, we also note that this research relies on data from the NIS database so it may be limited in the accuracy and completeness of the information. So, to support future research plans by researchers, we also provide additional recommendations for strengthening, namely: 1) collecting more complete and detailed data related to spinopelvic failure from various sources to increase the accuracy of additional cost estimates;² 2) broader and more in-depth prospective research to better understand the risk factors, incidence, and economic impact of spinopelvic failure after ASD surgery;³ 3) research focused on evaluating new techniques and devices/procedures designed to reduce spinopelvic failure after ASD surgery, as well as analyzing their impact on costs and clinical outcomes.

Disclosure

The authors report no conflicts of interest in this communication.