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September 30th, 2009 --
It's been a busy month with the Walk and Pediatric Gala, but I wanted to
take a moment to share an amazing statistic I came across recently.
The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), which is a
professional society for neurosurgeons, occasionally publishes statistics on
how common different surgical procedures are in the US. The statistics
are developed through a survey of practicing neurosurgeons. In 1998, a
survey such as this found that only a couple thousand Chiari decompression
were performed each year and that only 40% of neurosurgeons performed the
surgery.
In 2007, the AANS repeated the survey - in a more scientifically rigorous
fashion, and found that there are now more than 11,000 Chiari surgeries
performed each year in the US! In addition, now roughly three quarters
of neurosurgeons report they perform Chiari surgeries as part of their
practice.
This is amazing growth over a relatively short period of time and is likely
due to a combination of factors:
1) Chiari surgery is becoming more accepted in the neurosurgical community
as it matures as a procedure and more results based on it are published.
This is a natural development of any new technique.
2) Chiari is being diagnosed more frequently, especially among children, and
the real number of people who have Chiari is higher than originally thought.
3) The awareness efforts of the Chiari community are working.
I came across another piece of research which further adds to my belief that
we are making significant progress in raising awareness of Chiari,
especially among pediatric service providers.
The AANS/CNS (another trade group) joint section on pediatrics performed a
different survey of pediatric neurosurgeons to evaluate their beliefs on
where pediatricians need more training in neurosurgical conditions and
issues. The survey asked the respondents to rank just a few
conditions, and Chiari was one of them! This means that Chiari is
clearly recognized as a condition which pediatricians should be able to
identify and refer to neurosurgeons. Interestingly, the surgeons in
general thought that pediatricians were doing a pretty good job of
recognizing Chiari.
Facts such as these, combined with our success on lobbying Congress to focus
NIH funds on Chiari, and experiencing the Walk Across America with thousands
of participants, gives me tremendous hope for the future.
I hope you share that feeling with me.
-- Rick Labuda
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