Effects of Combined Use of Ultrasonic Bone Scalpel and Hemostatic Matrix on Perioperative Blood Loss and Surgical Duration in Degenerative Thoracolumbar Spine Surgery

How to decrease intraoperative bleeding, shorten surgical time, and increase safety in spinal surgery is an important issue. Ultrasonic bone removers and FloSeal have been proven to increase safety, reduce the surgical duration, and decrease intraoperative bleeding in skull base surgery. Therefore, we aimed to compare the surgical duration, blood loss, and complications during spinal surgery with or without the use of FloSeal and an ultrasonic bone scalpel. Therefore, we retrospectively reviewed 293 patients who underwent thoracolumbar spinal surgery with decompression and instrumented fusion performed by a single surgeon. We divided these patients into three groups, including nonuse of FloSeal nor a bone scalpel (group A), use of FloSeal only (group B), and use of FloSeal and a bone scalpel (group C) intraoperatively after pairing in terms of age, sex, and surgical level. The surgical duration, blood loss, and occurrence of complications were all recorded. The mean surgical duration in group A was 160 mins, in group B it was 167 mins, and in group C it was 134 mins. The mean blood loss was 700 ml in group A, 682 ml in group B, and 383 ml in group C. Six patients sustained intraoperative dura injuries in total, 3 in group A, 2 in group B, and 1 in group C. No postoperative neurologic defects or occurrences of hematoma were recorded. According to our results, we concluded that combined use of FloSeal and bone scalpels is recommended during primary thoracolumbar spinal surgery to reduce the intraoperative blood loss and shorten the surgical duration.