The Database

The ESSG database includes prospectively collected data from operative and non-operative patients with Adult Spinal Deformity (ASD) who fulfil the following criteria: age ≥18 years; coronal spinal curvature ≥20° or sagittal vertical axis (SVA) >5 cm or pelvic tilt >25° or thoracic kyphosis >60°. Patients are enrolled on a consecutive basis from the 6 study sites.

The database contains detailed information on demographic variables, radiologic deformity characteristics, treatment, treatment complications and adverse events, as well as patient self-rated condition-specific outcomes and health related quality of life (using the SRS22, ODI, COMI and SF-36v2 questionnaires). Baseline data are obtained at the time of enrolment, after obtaining the patient’s informed consent. Follow-up data for non-operative patients are obtained every year. Surgically treated patients are followed-up at 1.5, 6 and 12 months after surgery and every year thereafter. 

To date, ESSG has enrolled 1937 patients; 1131 of them have been included in the surgical arm of the study and 800 in the non-surgical arm. The following table shows the distribution of surgical patients in each site and the follow-up rate at two years after surgery:

Research Output

The ESSG research output has increased over the years in terms of the number of podium presentations at national and international conferences, the number of publications and the impact factor of the journals in which the work is published. In only 4 years, since the first manuscript was published, ESSG has published a total of 40 manuscripts. Our output is shown in the following graph:

International meetings include the Scoliosis Research Society (SRS); The Spine Society of Europe (Eurospine); International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine (ISSLS); International Meeting in Advanced Surgical Techniques (IMAST); North American Spine Society (NASS); Global Spine Congress (GSC); European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS), Euroanesthesia; and the Network for the advancement of patient blood management, haemostasis and thrombosis.

National meetings include: Grupo de Estudio de Enfermedades del Raquis (Spain), Turkish Congress of Orthopedics and Traumatology (Turkey), Turkish Spine congress (Turkey), Société Française de Chirurgie Rachidienne (France), and Swiss Society of Orthopaedics and Traumatology (Switzerland).