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I found out what a 'claw' is....

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  • I found out what a 'claw' is....

    This message is for Linda Racine (as you seem to know loads of useful scoli stuff) and anyone else who might be interested.

    I was told yesterday that my Surgeon would be using claws aswell as screws and hooks in my upcoming surgery, but no-one knew what they are so I had a (long) look and this is what I found


    Eur Spine J. 2005 Oct ;14:759-64 [Pubmed] [Scholar] [Select] [Drop] [Hide] [Show]
    Pull-out strength of the suprapedicle claw construct: a biomechanical study.
    Abdulrazzaq Alobaid, Vincent Arlet, Andre Busato, Thomas Steffen
    The pull-out of the superior screw is a well recognized problem in anterior instrumentation of the spine for scoliosis. A biomechanical pull-out study of anterior vertebral body screw in cadaveric thoracic spine was therefore designed to investigate and compare the pull-out strength of three different anterior vertebral body fixations using the AO Universal Spine System: simple bicortical screw, bicortical screw with an opposite washer (sometimes called pull-out resistant nut), and a new construct made of a bicortical screw with the addition of a suprapedicular hook on the same vertebra (or claw construct). The T4 to T9 vertebral bodies from six human cadavers (total of 36 specimens) were instrumented with three different instrumentation constructs after measuring the bone mineral density of each individual vertebra. After stabilization of the vertebral bodies, the screws were extracted employing a material testing system using axial pull-out. The maximum axial forces were recorded at the time of the construct failure. The mean ultimate fixation strength (UFS) values after being adjusted for bone mineral density and vertebral body diameter were 631, 711, and 1244 N for the three different constructs, respectively (screw alone, screw with an opposite washer, and screw with a suprapedicle claw). The difference in UFS was not significant for the first two constructs tested (screw alone and screw with an opposite washer). However, the difference in ultimate fixation strength between the claw and the other constructs was highly significant (P<0.0001). Specimens with low BMD did not benefit as much from claw construct as the ones did with a normal BMD. The failure mode of each construct was described, but was in neither case judged dangerous for the spinal cord. This study shows that the suprapedicle claw construct improves the pull-out strength of an anterior vertebral body screw by 80%, and changes the mode of failure so as not to rely only on the screw characteristics or solely on the vertebral body. By adding a suprapedicle hook in a claw configuration, one may prevent superior screw pull-out in anterior spine surgery for scoliosis.

    I found this article quite intesesting but probably, at this time, its only relavent to me typical, nothing I ever do is simple

    Kat
    1st Surgery in 1991 aged 15
    Fused T2 to L2
    'S' curve
    Before surgery T39 L49
    Revision surgery 6th Nov 2006
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