ArticleCureus2025
Artifacts Mimicking Hardware Loosening After Iterative Metal Artifact Reduction (iMAR) Processing in Spinal Surgery.
Article in Cureus, 2025. 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
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Metallic implants often produce artifacts in computed tomography (CT) imaging, complicating the interpretation of postoperative findings. This case report describes a 63-year-old male with a history of cervical and lumbar spine surgeries who presented with worsening radicular pain. The patient underwent cervical decompression laminectomy and posterior instrumented fusion. Postoperative CT, processed with an iterative metal artifact reduction (iMAR) algorithm, revealed unexpected hypodense lucencies surrounding pedicle screws and fixation hardware, initially suggestive of hardware loosening or infection. However, these lucencies were not seen in non-processed images, indicating their artifactual nature. This case highlights the potential for iMAR to generate misleading findings that may mimic clinical conditions, emphasizing the need for a careful approach when interpreting iMAR-processed images in conjunction with clinical context and pre-processed datasets to prevent unnecessary interventions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.