Guest editors introduction of the North American spine society section reports - state of the art and future directions in spine surgery/care

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Callum

North American Spine Society Journal (NASSJ) Focus issue presents NASS Section Reports addressing the current status and future directions of spine and spinal cord care. It highlights multidisciplinary reviews and narrative syntheses to help clinicians incorporate evolving innovations. The introduction emphasizes challenges in delivering quality care amid rising costs, limited resources, and the need for careful evaluation of new spine technologies. Topics include post-operative exercise timing, AI use in spine practice, spinal cord injury advances, robotics in minimally invasive surgery, and the present and future of intraoperative neuromonitoring.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages1

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Editorial

Guest editors introduction of the North American spine society section reports

Care delivery and translational research trends

Examples of featured topics: AI, exercises, spinal cord injury, robotics, IONM

Interactions across NASS Sections and highlights

Summary and acknowledgements

North American Spine Society Journal (NASSJ) 24 (2025) 100826 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect North American Spine Society Journal (NASSJ) journal [homepage:](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/xnsj)[ www.elsevier.com/locate/xnsj](homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/xnsj) | Editorial | | | --- | --- | | Guest editors introduction of the North American spine society section reports: state of the art and future directions in spine surgery/care | | Numerous advances are deﬁning the current status and future directions of care delivery and translational research related to disorders of the spine and spinal cord. Delivering quality care to spine patients is challenging in the current healthcare environment, with rising costs and competing demands for limited resources. Additionally, new spine technologies may oﬀer innovative solutions to our patients but need tobe properly vetted and studied. Keeping up with the latest innovationsand changes to spine practice is diﬃcult, and we have composed the latest Focus issue with this in mind. Multidisciplinary sections comprise part of the North American Spine Society (NASS) Strategic Growth Council. The NASS Sections each focus on a diﬀerent area of spine care and help to promote education, advance care, promote translational research, and share knowledge in each ﬁeld. In this special Focus issue of the (NASSJ), we present to you NASS Section Reports. These reports consist of narrative and systematic reviews as well as highlights of state-of-the-art topics in the many sub-disciplines of spine care. These section reports allow for further exploration of topics typically covered during symposia led by the Sections at the NASS annual meeting and other educational programming. We hope that the reader of these section reports will gain knowledge on a wide range of topics to inform and improve their practices. For example, the extent and timing of when to engage a post-operative spine patient in therapeutic exercises is controversial. One Section reviews data on timing and types of exercises appropriate after lumbar surgery. The rapid development of artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) is aﬀecting all aspects of medicine, and we include articles on its increasing utilization in spine practice. AI is already in use in planning for spinal deformity cases and presents many new tools in spine imaging, from automated spine segmentation to report generation. Many other areas of spine care are also seeing important changes. The spinal cord injury ﬁeld has gone from a paucity of options for neurological improvement to many emerging possibilities, including neuromodulation, neuroprotection and regenerative medicine; the state of the art in this area is reviewed. There has been rapid deployment of robotics in spine surgery in the last decade. One Section article showshow robotics and other enabling technologies is causing an evolution in minimally invasive spine surgery. Use of intraoperative neuromonitor- ing (IONM) has been increasing in spine surgery and now hundreds of thousands of cases per year in the US and Canada include IONM in the surgical workﬂow. The present and future of IONM is discussed in this Focus issue. The multidisciplinary nature of the NASS Sections allows for interaction between diﬀerent ﬁelds. The Section on Spinal Oncology contributes a report on the application of deformity principles to inform spine oncology decision making and surgery. Until a few years ago, there were few good solutions for chronic low back pain in the absence of instability or deformity. The advent of basivertebral nerve ablation hasoﬀered a new option for such patients. One Section report reviews the data on this emerging procedure. For those with interests in developing or enhancing a social media presence, one focus article covers best practices in social media for the spine clinician. This is certainly a hot and emerging topic. In summary, this NASSJ Focus issue showcases the breadth of

FAQs

What is the purpose of this NASSJ Focus issue?

It showcases NASS Section Reports that define the current state of the art and future directions in spine care, using narrative and systematic reviews plus highlights of key topics.

Why does the introduction emphasize evaluating new spine technologies?

Quality care is challenging in the current healthcare environment, and rising costs and limited resources require that new technologies be properly vetted and studied before broad adoption.

Which clinical and technology areas are highlighted in the issue?

The introduction mentions post-operative spine exercises, artificial intelligence in spine practice and imaging, advances in spinal cord injury, robotics in minimally invasive spine surgery, and the present and future of intraoperative neuromonitoring.

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Callum