Letter to the Editor concerning "Circumferential fusion using a custom-made screw in the management of high-grade spondylolisthesis" (by Jouve J-L et al. [2014] Eur Spine J; 23:S457-S462).

We have read with great interest your article describing‘‘an original’’ technique using a posterior-only approach toachieve a circumferential lumbosacral fusion with a custom-made screw [1]. Our attention was captured not onlyfor the ‘‘innovative’’ surgical technique, but also for thefact that it came 11 years after our original article publishedin Spine [2]. Even the custom-made screw is verysimilar to our cage that we still use since 1997. We knowthat in medicine it is very difficult to find new strategies,but is very important to learn from the past to find newtreatment path and, in the meantime, to cite the correctreferences.