Global Spine Journal

The Editors-in-Chief of GSJ are pleased to announce the release of their newest special issue, “Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Degenerative Cervical Myelopathy and Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury”. This special issue was spearheaded by GSJ Deputy Editor and Chairperson of the AOSpine Knowledge Forum for Spinal Cord Injury, Michael Fehlings, MD. AOSpine North America and AOSpine International, in collaboration with the Cervical Spine Research Society and the American Association/Congress of Neurologic Surgeons, sought to develop clinical practice guidelines to outline how to best manage patients with tSCI and DCM and address existing areas of controversy.

Dr. Fehlings said: “Both traumatic and nontrauamtic spinal cord injury result in devastating functional impairments and reduced quality of life. The last 10 years have witnessed significant improvements in the management of these conditions due to improved knowledge surrounding injury mechanisms, disease pathophysiology and the impact of surgery. These guidelines distill, for the first time, existing evidence on these topics and aim to develop recommendations to outline how to manage patients with degenerative cervical myelopathy and traumatic spinal cord injury. We hope these guidelines will promote shared decision making among physicians, patients and their families, standardize care worldwide and encourage future research to address existing knowledge gaps.”

This issue is available online here:

journals.sagepub.com

GSJ had a very busy year which is now wrapping up. Seven issues have already been released, with the final issue coming out at the end of November. The first issue of 2018 will be released in late January. This has been the most successful year so far for GSJ, with a record number of submissions, citations and downloads and that is thanks to all of our amazing authors, reviewers, and readers. It is all of you who keep the journal thriving.

Due to a switch in publishers, this was also a year of transition and change, and we also want to thank everyone for their patience and understanding during the transitional period. We have had a great first year with SAGE Publishers so far, and they have worked tirelessly to copy-edit our articles and make sure everything ran as smoothly as possible during the transition period. GSJ and AOSpine are excited to continue this partnership with SAGE over the next 2 years. Now that the transition period has ended, we are confident that 2018 will run as smoothly as ever.

GSJ has also resumed our regular podcast series, with new podcasts coming out with each new issue.

You can listen to all of the podcasts here:

journals.sagepub.com

We want to remind all AOSpine members that they can opt-in on their member profile to receive a free paper copy of every issue of GSJ. The Open Access fee of $1,500 for accepted articles is also waived for all accepted GSJ papers where at least one author is an AOSpine member!

All issues are available online to read here:

journals.sagepub.com/home/gsj