Summary of Background Data. Epidemiological studies of spine surgery often use ICD-9-CM billing codes in administrative databases to study trends and outcome of surgery. However, ICD-9-CM codes do not clearly identify specific surgical factors that may be related to outcome, such as instrumentation or number of levels treated. Previous studies have not investigated the sensitivity and specificity of a combined CPT and ICD-9-CM code algorithm for defining cervical spine surgical procedures.
Methods. We performed a retrospective study comparing the sensitivity and specificity of a combined CPT and ICD-9-CM code algorithm to
the operative note, the gold standard, in a single academic center. We also compared the accuracy of our combined algorithm with our published ICD-9-CM-only algorithm.
Results. The combined algorithm has high sensitivity and specificity for defining Rabusertib concentration cervical spine surgery, specific surgical procedures such as discectomy and fusion, and surgical approach. Compared to the ICD-9-CM-only algorithm, the combined algorithm significantly improves identification of discectomy, laminectomy, and fusion procedures and allows
identification of specific procedures such as laminaplasty and instrumentation with high sensitivity and specificity. Identification of reoperations has low sensitivity and specificity, but identification of number of levels instrumented, fused, and decompressed has high specificity.
Conclusion. The use of our combined CPT and ICD-9-CM algorithm to identify cervical Y-27632 cell line spine surgery was highly sensitive and specific. For
categories such as surgical approach, accuracy of our combined algorithm was similar to that of our ICD-9-CM-only algorithm. However, the combined algorithm improves sensitivity, and allows identification of procedures not defined by ICD-9-CM procedure codes, and number of levels instrumented and decompressed. PD98059 The combined algorithm better defines cervical spine surgery and specific factors that may impact outcome and cost.”
“Background: Internationally adopted children (IAC) are a growing group of US immigrants who often come from countries with high tuberculosis (TB) burdens. There is limited evidence to support current TB screening guidelines in these high-risk children. Therefore, we have prospectively examined the clinical utility of tuberculin skin testing (TST) and subsequent chest radiograph screening for TB disease in recently immigrated, asymptomatic IAC.
Methods: Within 6 months of immigration to the United States, we collected demographic information and assessed the nutritional status of 566 IAC who presented for routine postadoptive care. Children completed standardized clinical examination and TSTs.