The cutting-edge research by a team of spine surgeons and radiologists at Ganga Hospital has bagged the prestigious ISSLS Award for Best International Spine Research for the year 2025.
The research work titled ‘Integrated Total End Plate Score’ to Identify Preclinical Discs at Risk for Degeneration was selected from over numerous research papers submitted and shortlisted from all over the world.
The ISSLS Award for spine research is one of the most prestigious awards and is fiercely competed by scientists from all over the world. The selection is by a top-level international committee headed by Prof Helena Brisby, Gothenburg University, Sweden.
The study caries an award of USD 20,000 and will be published as a lead scientific article in the European Spine Journal. The paper will also be presented in a plenary session during the Annual Meeting of ISSLS in Atlanta, USA from May 12-16m, 2025 where more than 2500 spine surgeons and spine researchers from all international societies will come together for the meeting.
The study was performed by the group – Dr Rajasekaran, Dr Pushpa, Dr Gnanaprakash Gurusamy, Dr Karthik Ramachandran, Dr Yirdaw, Dr Basu, Dr Kamodia, Dr Abdelwahed, Dr Anand, Dr Ajoy Prasad Shetty and Dr Rishi Kanna
About the study:
This research work utilizes FLASH sequence to identify the status and severity of damage of the cartilage end plate. An ‘Integrated Total End Plate Score’ was developed to identify the changes in cartilage and bony end plates.
The highlight of the study was that it showed cartilage end plate defects to occur much before the changes in the bony end plate or changes in Pfirmann grade of degeneration.
This allowed us to identify the discs which are undergoing degeneration at the molecular level but still appearing normal in MRI. These discs may be the right cohort for regenerative therapy..
Spine Research in Ganga Hospital
The Spine Unit of Ganga Hospital has placed Coimbatore in the world map of spine research, having won many national and international awards. They also created world record by winning the prestigious ISSLS award five times previously, in the years 2004, 2010, 2013, 2017 and 2022.
The research team previously created another record by winning the prestigious North American Spine Society outstanding research award continuously for four years (2019 to 2022) which has not been done before.
They have also been the proud recipient of the Asia Pacific Spine Research Award multiple times; the European Spine Outstanding Research award and the British Spine award previously in addition to the numerous national awards by the Medical Council of India.
