Søren Eiskjær

I am a 67-year-old orthopedic surgeon with a 40-year career in orthopedic surgery. The last 25 years I have been employed at Aalborg University Hospital as the director of spine surgery. I am an associate professor and have been so for the last 10 years. Besides all kinds of spine surgery, we are also responsible for all pelvic fracture surgery in Region Nord of Denmark (population 700.00). Besides being an orthopedic surgeon and a spine surgeon, I have undertaken master’s studies in Health Informatics at Aalborg University.

My main research interest is spine surgery – lumbar spinal fusion, lumbar spinal stenosis, early onset scoliosis, magnetically controlled growing rods, AIS, EOS imaging, clinical decision support systems, machine learning and statistical analysis of biomedical data. Especially the R language has attracted my attention the last few years and I usually participate in the useR conference every year. For an example of one of my R scripts see link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2023.1225540/full#supplementary-material

I have 57 publications in peer-reviewed journals available on PubMed see link: Eiskjær S OR Eiskjoer SP OR Eisjaer S - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)

In my capacity as an associate professor, I teach the medical students at Aalborg University Hospital as much as possible about modern spine surgery. Besides that, I was responsible for conducting the national spine surgery subspecialty course from 2019 to 2022.

In the past I have supervised 2 PhD students as main supervisor: January 2020 Peter Heide Pedersen was awarded the PhD degree for his thesis: Patient radiation dose from the EOS low-dose scanner and other X-ray modalities in scoliosis patients. An evaluation of organ dose and effective dose.  June 2021 Kresten Wendell Rickers was awarded the PhD degree for his thesis: New Interventions for lumbar disc herniation. As a co-supervisor (collaboration with Middelfart Spine Center) I have supervised Casper Friis Pedersen: May 2023 he was awarded the PhD degree for his thesis Decision Support in Spine Treatment Guided by Machine Learning and Registry Data. 

Opponency: Opponent at the PhD defence by Søren Ohrt-Nissen and Casper Dragsted both from the Spine Unit, Department of Orthopedic Surgery, Rigshospitalet

I have been awarded the Volvo award winner in clinical studies twice – later the ISSLS (International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine) prize in clinical studies.

Ongoing research: Validation of the Bartynski classification for lateral recess stenosis, case report en bloc resection of hemangioblastoma at the cervicothoracic junction, shared decision making in lumbar spinal stenosis with and without the Propose shiny app – an evaluation using Collaborate and SURE,  5-20 years results after surgery for AIS.

New publications 2023:                                                                                                                                                       

 Eiskjær S, Pedersen CF, Skov ST, Andersen MØ: Usability and performance govern spine surgeons’ use of a clinical decision support system for shared decision-making on the choice of treatment of common lumbar degenerative disorders. Front Digit Health 2023;5:1225540. Doi: 10.3389/fdgth.2023.1225540. Free PMC article.           

Diekhöner L, Meyer CS, Eiskjær S.  The magnetic field strength and the force distance dependency of the magnetically controlled growing rods used for early onset scoliosis. Diekhöner L, Meyer CS, Eiskjær S. Sci Rep 2023;13:3045. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-30232-8. Free PMC article.

Our Partners in research: Physics Group, Department of Materials and Production, Aalborg University, Center for Spine Surgery and Research, Middelfart, University of Southern Denmark.