Skip to main content

Spine Fusion clinical trials at UCSF

3 in progress, 2 open to eligible people

Spine fusion is a way to connect bones in the spine. UCSF is researching how ketamine affects brain signals during surgery. They are also developing a tailored pain relief system for pediatric spine fusion patients.

Showing trials for
  • Ketamine on Intraoperative Motor Evoked Potentials

    open to eligible people ages 18-100

    The goal of this clinical trial is to learn about the effect of ketamine on intraoperative motor evoked potentials in adult patients undergoing thoracolumbar spinal fusions. Participants will undergo a standard anesthetic. In addition to the standard anesthetic, the patients will be administered increasing doses of ketamine with motor-evoked potentials being measured at each dose, to assess any impacts.

    San Francisco, California

  • Personalized Perioperative Analgesia Platform (PPAP) for Pediatric Spine Fusion Surgery (sIRB)

    open to eligible people ages 10-21

    The purpose of this collaborative CTSA application is to develop an innovative perioperative precision analgesia platform (PPAP) to improve analgesia and reduce serious immediate and long-term adverse outcomes of perioperative opioids in children undergoing painful surgery.

    San Francisco, California and other locations

  • Magnesium on Neuromonitoring

    Sorry, not yet accepting patients

    Intraoperative neurophysiologic monitoring (IONM) is commonly used during complex spinal surgery to monitor the integrity of neural structures and improve the perioperative safety profile. Transcranial Motor Evoked Potentials (TcMEPs) monitor the integrity of the motor pathways and are one of the most commonly used monitoring modalities in spinal surgery. Because inhaled anesthetics can negatively affect the ability to monitor TcMEPs, anesthesiologists commonly use a combination of propofol and opioids to maintain the anesthetic state. Additionally, anesthesiologists will frequently administer intravenous infusions of medications that can decrease postoperative pain and opioid use (called opioid-sparing adjuncts) because spinal surgeries result in significant postoperative pain. Despite the increasing use of these agents, there is scant clinical data about how they may affect the integrity of TcMEP monitoring. Magnesium (Mg), a N-methyl-d-aspartate receptors (NMDA) receptor antagonist, is one of the adjuncts with robust data supporting clinical efficacy to decrease pain and opioid use on TcMEPs. Mg has been used clinically for decades. The investigators commonly utilize intravenous magnesium as a component of our spinal anesthesia protocol. However, there is only a single case report that discusses the effects of Mg on TcMEPs. Here the investigators propose a prospective clinical trial to quantitatively assess the effects of various Mg plasma levels on TcMEPs. There is a lack of literature on the pharmacokinetics of magnesium in non-pregnant patients.

    San Francisco, California

Our lead scientists for Spine Fusion research studies include .

Last updated: