Spinal Therapies announced its dissolution after the company determined that it is unlikely to ever regain profitability since the early days when chymopapain was promoted by the likes of Eugene Nordby, who is still alive and thriving as the first Executive Director of IITS.

I took over IITS at the request of Dr. Nordby and maintained an emphasis on the Organization’s focus on Intradiscal therapy aided by the endoscope as the least invasive, visually-guided treatment for discogenic pain.

Intradiscal therapy is still the only Level I validated EBM. Unfortunately, events adversely affecting Pharma and Surgical company profitability have caused both entities to turn toward the more profitable implant and hardware devices to follow the money and the road to profits.

We have, however, a core of highly trained and dedicated surgeons who recognize the future of spine care who are are lifetime members of IITTS, and each proudly wears the wears the Gold IITS pin on their lapels at spine meetings, still promoting Intradiscal therapy through an endoscope.

The 26th Annual IITS meeting in Seoul was a resounding success thanks to President Gun Choi, the Program Committee, the invited speakers, and the hospitality and pre-and post meeting surgical observation program of Wooridul’s Gimpo Hospital. Over 200 attendees were present, and discussion was robust. It was apparent that MIS transforaminal and translaminar surgery has made great strides.

Each part of the meeting, the lectures, and the workshop, was impressive independently, but the ability to watch live surgery, illustrating the surgical indications and effectiveness of the MIS procedures performed by Wooridul, solidified how far we have gone in the past 10 years.