Spine Research in Motion – Conference Celebrating 5 Years of the Chair in Spinal Neurosurgery

09:30 – Arrival & Welcome
09:50 – Opening by Prof. Dr. Yasin Temel
10:00 – Introduction by Dr. Pieter Kubben: De techniek staat voor niets

• Block 1 – Pain (10:20 – 11:00)
  10:20 – Sem Hermans: Low back pain due to sacroiliac dysfunction: an under-exposed diagnosis with therapeutic potential?
  10:30 – Wouter van Hemert: The Boundaries of the Spine: Where Hip and Data Meet the Spine
  10:50 – Inez Renne: Bespreking van het SI gewricht, en de mobiliteit van dit gewricht.
  11:00 – Break
• Block 2 – Cervical (11:30 – 12:30)
  11:30 – Toon Boselie / Valérie Schuermans / Esther van Santbrink: The myth of normal cervical spine motion
  11:50 – Nadia Simoes de Souza: Work ability and productivity after surgery for cervical radiculopathy
  12:00 – Fleur van de Kaaij: AI-Guided Spinal Screw Planning for Cervical Spine Procedures
  12:15 – Dr. Anna MacDowall: Cluster randomized trials; the future for achieving large sample sizes in spinal fracture research
  12:35 – Lunch Break
• Block 3 – Lumbar (13:35 – 14:20)
  13:35 – Inge Caelers / Ruud Droeghaag / Max de Vries: Lumbar Spine Research: Lumbar Spine Research: from Effectiveness to Cost-effectiveness.
  13:55 – Dr. Andreas Demetriades: Geographical variation in spinal training, services and protocol adherence
  14:20 – Break
• Block 4 – Scoliosis/ Deformity (14:50 – 15:45)
  14:50 – Prof. Dr. Paul Willems: Osteoporosis and Spinal Deformity
  15:15 – Stephanie Huysmans:  Mind your step: 3D gait alterations in patients with adult spinal deformity before and after spinal fusion surgery.
  15:30 – Maarten ter Dorsthorst: Veroudering van de cervicale tussenwervelschijf: cellulaire en moleculaire inzichten
  15:40 – Closing by Prof. Dr. Henk van Santbrink: Spine research: How to move forward?

• Dr Anna McDowell, orthopedic surgeon, Uppsala Sweden

Anna MacDowall, MD, PhD, went to medical school at the University of Uppsala 1996-2002. She has been a consultant at the spine surgery unit in the department of Orthopaedics, Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden, since 2012. The unit is a tertiary referral unit for spine surgery and covers a catchment area of 2.6 million inhabitants and performs approximately 900 spine operations per year. The unit has an active research profile with several ongoing clinical randomized controlled trials and a laboratory for spinal cord injury basic research.

Dr. MacDowall defended her thesis on cervical artificial disc replacements in 2018. She has currently a position as a senior consultant and associate professor and is tutoring five PhD students. The focus subjects include degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis, degenerative cervical radiculopathy, degenerative cervical myelopathy, and cervical spine fractures. Ongoing randomized controlled trials are the MyRanc trial and the SOFT trial. She is also active in a specialized group working with national guidelines for prehospital and intrahospital spinal motion restriction.

Dr MacDowall has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes, from the Swedish society of Orthopaedic surgeons, the European Cervical Spine Research Society, and the Asia-Pacific Cervical Spine Research Society. Dr MacDowall recently won a large scholarship from Uppsala University in recognition of her achievements.

Dr. MacDowall served as a board member in the Swedish Society of Spinal Surgeons 2016-2018 and is actively involved in the cervical module of the Swedish Spine register. She has been an active member of the CSRS-Europe since 2017 and became a board member in 2020.

• Dr. Andreas Demetriades, neurosurgeon in Edinburgh

• Prof. dr. Paul Willems, orthopedic surgeon, Maastricht

Paul Willems finished his training in Orthopedic Surgery in 2002. He then followed an AO/ASIF accredited fellowship in Spine Surgery at the Sint Maartenskliniek in Nijmegen, a renowned center for deformity and degenerative disorders of the spine, after which he started working as a general orthopedic surgeon at the Viecuri Medical Centre in Venlo. Because of his special interest in spinal care and research, he continued his career at the Maastricht University Medical Center as a Spine specialist at the department of Orthopaedics. Spinal care at the Maastricht UMC encompasses counselling at a 1^st line special setting for nonspecific low back pain, 2^nd line surgery for degenerative disorders, and 3^rd line treatment of spinal deformity and last resort complex spine cases. Current spinal care and dedicated research focuses on scoliosis in children, adult spinal deformity and related osteoporosis. Paul Willems is a professor of Integrated Spinal Care at the University of Maastricht and (co)authored over 150 peer reviewed spine-related scientific papers in international journals.

Accreditation for this conference has been requested from the following professional associations:

• Nederlandse Vereniging voor Neurochirurgie (NVvN)
• Nederlandse Orthopedische Vereniging (NOV)
• Nederlandse Vereniging voor Neurologie (NVN)

This conference is open to invited guests only.

• Have you received an invitation? Please register using this registrationform.
• Haven’t received an invitation but interested in attending?
  Feel free to contact us by email at: congresbureau@zuyderland.nl

Participation in this event is free of charge. However, we kindly ask that you inform us in advance via the above email address if you are unable to attend.

After registering, you will receive a confirmation by email.