Currently there is paucity of information on the prevalence of pre-operative coronal imbalance in patients with degenerative lumbar scoliosis (DLS) and its influence on surgical outcomes. This study aims to investigate in DLS, the prevalence of coronal imbalance, to propose a novel classification system and to investigate whether pre-operative coronal imbalance affects clinical outcomes following osteotomy. A total of 284 DLS patients were recruited.
A total of 284 DLS patients were recruited into this two-stage study, among which 69 patients were treated by posterior-only correction and the remaining 215 patients received conservative treatment. Using pre-operative long-cassette X-ray films, all patients were classified based on coronal balance distance (CBD) defined as the horizontal distance between C7 plumb line and central sacral vertical line: Type A, CBD \< 3cm; Type B, CBD \> 3cm and C7PL shifts to the concave side of curve; Type C, CBD \> 3cm and C7PL shifts to the convex side of curve. The prevalence of pre-operative coronal imbalance was calculated for stage I study. Post-operative CBD in patients who received surgery was measured to evaluate clinical outcomes for stage II study.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
284
The DLS patients underwent osteotomy including pedicle subtraction osteotomy (PSO) or Smith-Petersen osteotomy (SPO)
The relationship between coronal balance classification and immediate post-operative imbalance using radiographic measurements
This part of the study aims to analyze the immediate imbalance after surgery, most of the patients took post-operative films two weeks after surgery, but there were some patients who could not stand at that timepoint and the follow-up time was then at 3 months after surgery.
Time frame: Up to 3 months
Relationship between post-operative imbalance and quality of life using quality of life questionnaires including SF-36, ODI and VAS
The quality of life measurements were obtained using questionnaires, and the correlations between coronal imbalance and quality of life were analyzed at 1 year follow-up.
Time frame: Up to 1 year
Prevalence of coronal imbalance in degenerative scoliosis using radiographic measurements
The prevalence of coronal imbalance was analyzed in this cross-sectional study. Only a small part of the patients were with longitudinal follow-up. Most of them were without follow-up.
Time frame: Up to 2 year pre-operative follow-up
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