
Originally Posted by
PNUTTRO
I think that this is the real problem. A patient isn't a patient until there are symptoms. And likely a lot of kids have had their major growth spurt before the scoliosis is diagnosed. It probably takes a parent who really notices their kid's body changes to detect it early.
Yes.
That one commentator thought measurement error was a potential Achilles heel.
I think another is that these results may largely of not only apply to kids with double majors who are beyond their growth spurt and wearing Boston braces. And even then there is a small effect buried under a sea of variability. I would like to see if and how surgeons will change their treatment based on this paper.
I also wonder if these results have much if any applicability to lumbar curves. I think because of the lower propensity to progress, there the risk of over-treating is larger than in double majors and I don't know if this study was designed to ferret out how many patients would not have progressed anyway no matter what they did or didn't do.
And the $64,000 question of what happens in the out years (35 is a key age per Linda) still looms. I hope someone follows this cohort out.
Last, we have seen victory claimed before only to be shot down as in the case inadvertent stacking of curve types in other studies. Nobody saw that coming and perhaps nobody will see other things coming that affect interpretation of these results. Scientific results like these are tentative by their nature, especially when the results are not clean. These results may stand but we will have to wait and see if they do and if there is enough here to change treatment regimes.
Last edited by Pooka1; 07-22-2010 at 11:35 AM.
Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis
No island of sanity.
Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
Answer: Medicine
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