[Reckoning: Assessment of 21 years' work in spinal surgery]

Of the world-wide used Cotrel-Dubousset instrumentation and surgical technique providing breakthrough for the three-dimensional correction and multi-segmental fixation of spinal deformity surgery in Hungary is linked to the author's name, who carried out 1655 spine deformity surgeries in the last 21 years.

The aim of the author was to discuss his own results in the field of spine surgery and compare his own data to those published in the international literature.

At the beginning hooks, followed by hybrid instrumentation with hooks in thoracic area and transpedicular screws in lumbar spine have been used for the segmental fixation. During the correction process, initially the classic derotation maneuver was used, followed by the translation and then the in situ bending techniques and, finally, a combination of the above three techniques have been applied.

In addition to the restoration of normal sagittal balance, an average of 40.8° (SD, 25.9), a 65.5% correction was achieved in the frontal plane, which partly exceeds and partly consistent with the published international results. The incidence of inflammation (3.9%), and mechanical complications (1.7%) was similar to the international average, while the incidence of neurological complications (0.48%) was slightly lower than the average of international data.

The author believes that the better correction results as compared to the international average could be due to the always consistent application of the Cotrel-Dubousset instrumentation correction philosophy based on the meticulous segmental analysis of spine deformities.