Originally posted by rohrer01
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I don't "attack" the stats, I question them from a point of scientific skepticism as everyone who is trained in science would do. I question the stats because the literature in this area of bracing and PT to avoid surgery for life is a train wreck. It is such a train wreck that even someone outside this field can easily find the issues. That is not the case in say my field of science in my opinion. This is not the fault of the surgeons/researchers... the field is much more difficult than in other fields.
I do NOT question bracing because it failed my one daughter. Bracing is known to have a poor track record in certain connective tissue disorders. My daughter has something, hopefully not Marfans but something. So bracing in her case was probably not useful and therefore doesn't inform my opinion of general bracing efficacy.
If only the literature wasn't such train wreck we might advance the ball down the field. But when the gold standard paper declares bracing a success in a child with a 49* curve and up to 25% growth remaining, and then doesn't post the curve measurements at the end of the study, how does that not add to the train wreck? Does anyone believe the cases who ended above 40* aren't likely to need fusion in the future if only due to pain and damage from being out of alignment? Yet they are still "successes". And we have had cases on the forum where bracing appeared to hold the curve to the point of skeletal maturity and then they later needed surgery as adults.
The bracing literature does not, or maybe cannot, address the one issue patients want to know... does bracing (or PT) let them avoid surgery for life. That is why I question these treatments.
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