Unfortunately, with a subsequent 1.5 inches in growth, your daughter was not at skeletal maturity. Curves can change dramatically with growth. Do you mind telling us which tests were used to determine that she was skeletally mature? The hand x-ray is apparently a better indicator for skeletal maturity than the Risser sign (observed from the regular scoliosis x-rays), although the hand x-rays are not typically used in order to reduce the number of x-rays taken. Perhaps with the lower x-ray exposure in the new digital x-ray systems, this could change and the doctors could use a more accurate test on children who are post-menarchal. Perhaps her doctor could do this test in order to determine if she could benefit from a brace still. Especially since you have no idea how tall she could end up, as many Chinese people are quite tall.
My daughter is a serious ballet dancer and was diagnosed with a 35 degree thoracic scoliosis curve (and lower compensatory curve) when she was twelve, she is now 14 years. She was placed in a Charleston Bending Brace at night in order to stop the quickly increasing curvature. Before she got her brace, her right shoulder and scapula were also changing rapidly and she was losing her balance in turns, especially en pointe. It was very frightening as she fell en pointe a few times due to the quick change of balance that was occurring in her body. Fortunately, the brace worked and the progression stopped.
My daughter's ballet teacher told me at the time that she will have a much more difficult time with ballet than the other students due to her shoulders not being level and would have to work much harder than the other students. Fortunately, the teacher has been working with her on posture, mainly keeping her shoulders level and keeping rib cage and scapula tucked in and in conjunction with using her brace, you basically can't tell she even has scoliosis anymore and her turns are much better, she can do triple pirouettes en pointe now.

I think the answer to your question is that everything is very individually variable. Some girls with fusions end up quitting ballet completely, because they just can't continue...others continue on with somewhat less flexibility in their spine just because they love dance so much. One girl went on to a top flight summer intensive very soon after scoliosis surgery.
I had never heard of being able to be a professional ballet dancer after fusion surgery, but look at this thread's comments and notice that one lady says her daughter's surgeon performed a partial fusion surgery on two ABT dancers and they are still dancing professionally! I'd love to be able to verify that! But read the comments, they're very enlightening.
http://www.dancehere.com/ballet-and-scoliosis/
Also, I came across a post here in this forum's archives, with very good advice from David Wolpert, an author of a scoliosis surgery book who posts every once in a while at this forum. The comments are also interesting...although there is a serious debate about the effectiveness of the Spinecor brace that is mentioned farther down in the comments, especially on larger curves and during the adolescent growth spurt. But the comments are nevertheless helpful.
http://www.scoliosis.org/forum/archi...php/t-460.html
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