Reply to Commentary on “History of Spinal Neurosurgery and Spine Societies”

To the editor

We thank Dr. Khattab and Bourghli for the letter in response to our paper “History of Spinal Neurosurgery and Spine Societies” [1]. In fact, this letter reflects the ongoing competition between the neuro and ortho-spine surgeons.

We have already mentioned the Egyptian Spine Association which is a combined effort of ortho and neurosurgery. We apologize for not mentioning the “Egyptian Spine Study Group” https://egyssg.hpgportal.com/ and “Egyptian Scoliosis Society.” The latter does not have a web page, but a face-book site only https://www.facebook.com/Egyspine/

The sentence “In Egypt, spine practice is done mostly by neurosurgeons.” is the observation of our coauthor Dr. Mohamed Mohi Eldin. Unfortunately, it is not supported by any statistical data or official numbers. On the other hand, the percentage of the practices mentioned by the authors from a survey cannot be taken as authentic data.

Besides, our paper has focused more on the history of spinal neurosurgery. We know that there are eminent international orthopedic spine surgeons in Egypt, who has added and still adding much to the practice and education of spine surgery. No one can ignore them or their great role and well-established existence.

We appreciate the interest of Dr. Khattab and Bourghli to our paper.

With best greetings