Startling statistics regarding scoliosis surgery

[EL-34]

https://www.treatingscoliosis.com/scoliosis-surgery/

What are your thoughts on this article?

[Pooka1]

https://www.treatingscoliosis.com/scoliosis-surgery/

What are your thoughts on this article?

Here are my thoughts:

1. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
2. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
3. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
4. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
5. Chiros are not trained to be discussing this.
6. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
7. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
8. Chiro schools have the lowest required GPA of all the allied health schools.
9. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!
10. STOP READING CRAP WRITTEN BY CHIROS!

[Pooka1]

https://www.chirobase.org/ (Many of these posts are older but NOTHING has changed w.r.t. chiro sitting on a throne of lies and chiros NOT being trained to deal with scoliosis.)

Check out this geniusry... https://www.chirobase.org/03Edu/adm.html

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/sci...-chiropractic/

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/chi...erview-part-i/

[LindaRacine]

I totally agree with Pooka. If you want to research surgical outcomes, you should absolutely stay away from chiropractic sites.

Also, because your child has congenital scoliosis, you should try to stick, as much as possible, to reading about congenital surgery outcomes. Here's a study that quotes outcome statistics from hemi-vertebrae surgery:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21092461

--Linda

[EL-34]

The Mayo clinic states that fusion is a generally safe surgery.

The most severe complication is nerve damage.

This is the kind of stuff I am looking for.

[EL-34]

I totally agree with Pooka. If you want to research surgical outcomes, you should absolutely stay away from chiropractic sites.

Also, because your child has congenital scoliosis, you should try to stick, as much as possible, to reading about congenital surgery outcomes. Here's a study that quotes outcome statistics from hemi-vertebrae surgery:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21092461

--Linda

Is that article based on Chinese operations or US operations.

35 of 35 patients were helped. I heard the chance of failure of this surgery was 10%. By failing I mean paralysis during surgery.

[Pooka1]

I heard the chance of failure of this surgery was 10%. By failing I mean paralysis during surgery.

What is the source of that statistic? It sounds high but I don't know of course. Let's just say I bet it is not true.

[LindaRacine]

Is that article based on Chinese operations or US operations.

35 of 35 patients were helped. I heard the chance of failure of this surgery was 10%. By failing I mean paralysis during surgery.

Not sure why it makes a difference, but I would assume its Chinese patients. For the most part, if you want to know what might happen in your child's case, you're going to have to wait until her surgeon publishes their statistics.

Congenital scoliosis is a pretty horrid diagnosis. Surgery is definitely complex, and complications are not uncommon. Doing nothing also has a downside. Has your surgeon talked about what the future looks like if no surgery is done?

Here are some additional papers that might be of interest:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27927556
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/aorth/2017/4213413/
https://josr-online.biomedcentral.co...018-018-0946-3
https://www.thespinejournalonline.co...113-3/fulltext

--Linda

[Pooka1]

Here is a recent edition of arguably the top spine research journal in the world published in English.

https://journals.lww.com/spinejourna...BMVmJQVUE9PSJ9

Note the number of articles authored by Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and other nationalities.

The US has no monopoly nor even maybe an inside track on cutting edge spine research.

[titaniumed]

The US has no monopoly nor even maybe an inside track on cutting edge spine research.

You might look at this one from the European Spine Journal

I also have noticed more studies from China lately.... They have 4 times our population, that would mean 4 times the amount of spine problems. You would think they would publish 4 times as much but according to this study, that's not the case.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3463701/

Investigators from American institutions authored 60 of the top 100 articles while European centers published 29 articles. Authors from Canadian and Australian institutions produced 8 and 3 articles respectively. Articles from Europe came from seven regions—UK (11 articles), Netherlands (6 articles), Sweden (5 articles), France (3 articles), Norway (2 articles), Denmark and Switzerland (1 article each).

Out of the "top" 100 spine articles (Cited articles)
60 US
8 Canada
3 Australia
11 UK

Degeneration comes in 1st place with 49

Deformity came in low with 4

No mention of China....Notice the 2 Chinese authors. Maybe they don't speak Chinese. Are there no Chinese "cited" articles? I guess not.

Ed

[titaniumed]

Another thing to notice is the progression. The 1990's were the most productive period in spine. It sure did drop off after 2000....

The advancements that have been made in scoliosis surgery in the last 30 years have been monumental. Its why I waited for my surgeries.

I noticed hemi studies back from 1922. Can you imagine that? Probably HSS in NYC.

Ed

[Pooka1]

Here are some additional papers that might be of interest:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27927556
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/aorth/2017/4213413/
https://josr-online.biomedcentral.co...018-018-0946-3
https://www.thespinejournalonline.co...113-3/fulltext

--Linda

These are the type of articles that give the information that you asked for. After skimming them, absent other conditions that may complicate the case, I bet there is a medical consensus on correcting hemis even in very young children.

If there is a consensus, it means that a majority of surgeons have weighed the results (and complications) of surgery against not doing surgery and decided children are better off with surgery.

Meanwhile the chiros are drooling off in the corner.

[Tina_R]

https://www.treatingscoliosis.com/scoliosis-surgery/

What are your thoughts on this article?

The authors have made sure this article comes up near the top in google searches, giving it some appearance of authority.

I can see why people are tempted to consult treatments like this - it's not great to have surgery. The surgery really changes your body and can have complications for some, maybe not as much for young people. If surgeons were more open and honest about that maybe patients would trust them more. Also if they would spell out what can happen in the absence of surgery, something that's admittedly hard to predict for any one sufferer of scoliosis.

The treatment in this article with that asymmetrical suit the chiros have designed looks like a convincing idea. As I said, I can see why people are tempted by it.

[LindaRacine]

If surgeons were more open and honest about that maybe patients would trust them more. Also if they would spell out what can happen in the absence of surgery, something that's admittedly hard to predict for any one sufferer of scoliosis.

It makes me sad that anyone thinks that most surgeons aren't open and honest. While I've heard some horror stories about surgeons, I have found that most surgeons are honest.

As far as spelling out what absence of surgery means, I've heard for at least 30-40 years that adults with scoliosis typically have curve increases on average of 1 degree per year. And, again, on average, while that increase can bring pain and deformity, it typically doesn't lead to major health issues unless the thoracic curve reaches 100 degrees or more. At 100 degrees, thoracic curves often cause heart and lung issues.

For the record, here's a very recent paper of interest on natural history:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31975257

[Pooka1]

For the record, here's a very recent paper of interest on natural history:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31975257

Well that is very interesting... first evidence of what has been apparent here in the anecdotes... you wait longer you lose more levels. on average, small sample size, etc. etc.

The first thing that alerted me to this was seeing the prevalence of various types of curves in kids versus adults. If the adult stats I saw included non-AIS curves then I am wrong to compare kids and adults because adults will include a lot of lumbar degenerative cases. Assuming they were all AIS, Adults had more lumbar curves than kids which obviously means they sometimes develop if you don't treat T curves. Knowing this you would think they would lower the trigger angle on fusing T curves maybe to 40* from 50*. Forty degree curves certainly have a potential to progress. If that potential is large then I think they should lower the trigger angle if only to try to avoid lumbar involvement later in life.