Fortitudine,
It's been very interesting watching this unfold. My first spine surgeon's conference was AAMISMS (American Academy of Minimially Invasive Spinal Medicine and Surgery - see
http://www.aamisms.com/) in December of 2002. This is where I met Dr. Bertagnoli and Dr. Yeung. At this conference, I became something of a curiosity... a real live ADR patient. Almost none of the attendees knew anything about ADR... very few believed in the technology.
I've been to all 4 SAS (Spine Arthroplasty Society - all about motion preservation) meetings and 3 NASS (North American Spine Society - all about spine... the largest spine congress) meetings since then. It's been interesting watching the attitudes of the medical community change.
The patients have seen it in their interactions with thier doctors:
- 2002: I've not heard of disc replacement, but it can't be good.
- 2003: I've heard of disc replacement, but I won't even consider it until it's been FDA approved for 5 years.
- 2004: Yes it looks promising, but it's still not proven.
- 2005: I'm trying to get training, but they are scheduling 10 months out.
- 2006: I've been trained and have done a few cases, but the insurance companies still aren't paying.
As your question indicates, there is a difference between SAS and NASS. SAS has been attended by the medical community and portions of the industry that embraces motion preservation. The early SAS meetings were pretty outrageous Rah-Rah events. Many articles were written in orthopedics industry newsletters about how 'salesy' they were. As the years have unfolded, more and more balanced data has been presented. The doctors who presented early successes with unbridled enthusiasm, have been tempered by their real-world experiences.
In the first years, there was a big difference... now it's much less apparent. There are fewer motion preservation naysayers at NASS than there were a few years ago. The rah-rah ADR enthusasim of SAS's past is toned down. There is a HUGE overlap in the presentations... with many of the same papers presented at both conferences.
Both are excellent congresses with a ton of good info. There is much to complain about as well. Much of the data that is presented has less to do with science and medicine than it does with marketing. It's very difficult to separate the useful info from the marketing spin. The acceptance of data that clears the 'published in peer-reviewed journals' bar, must be reviewed with a very critical eye. Just because it's published in the NASS journal does not mean that it's useful in our decision making process. It certainly may well be... but the fact that it's here doesn't make it so.
Mark