ArticleGlobal spine journal2023
How Knowledgeable Are Spine Surgeons Regarding EMG-NCS for Cervical Spine Conditions? An International Aospine Survey.
Article in Global spine journal, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed, 3 citations in OpenAlex.
- Shoulder pain that is not shoulder pathology - a shoulder surgeon's guide to concomitant cervical spine and rotator cuff disease.JSES reviews, reports, and techniques · 2026Review
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
STUDY
designCross-sectional, international survey.
objectivesTo evaluate the knowledge of spine surgeons regarding the use of electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies (NCS) for degenerative cervical spine conditions (DCC).
methodsAll members of AO Spine International were emailed an anonymous survey to evaluate their clinical knowledge about the use of EMG and nerve conduction studies for DCC. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the results, as well as to compare the answers among different groups of surgeons and assess demographic characteristics.
resultsA total of 402 participants answered the survey, 91.79% were men from the 5 continents. There were 221 orthopedic surgeons (55.39%) and 171 neurosurgeons (42.86%), more than a half of them with a complete spinal fellowship (56.44%). The most common reasons that surgeons obtain the test is to differentiate a radiculopathy from a peripheral nerve compression (88.06%). As a group, the responding surgeons' knowledge regarding EMG-NCS was poor. Only 53.46% of surgeons correctly answered that EMG-NCS is unable to differentiate a C5 from a C6 radiculopathy. Only 23.47% of the surgeons knew that EMG-NCS are not able to diagnose a pre vs a post-fixed brachial plexus. Only 25% of the surgeons correctly answered a question regarding the test's ability to diagnose other neurological diseases.
conclusionsWe found that our respondents' knowledge regarding EMG-NCS for DCC was poor. Identifying the weak points of knowledge about EMG-NCS may help to educate surgeons on the indications for the test and the proper way to interpret the results.
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Registered trials
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