Keiya Yamana, Masato Tanaka, Yoshihisa Sugimoto, Tomoyuki Takigawa, Toshifumi Ozaki, Hitoshi Konishi


October 2010, Volume 19, Issue 10, pp 1643 - 1650 Original Article Read Full Article 10.1007/s00586-010-1402-1

First Online: 23 April 2010

The instrumentation of the osteoporotic spine may sometimes result in failure due to the loosening or pullout of the conventional pedicle screw. Moreover, augmentation of screws with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) has risks of complications. We developed a new and original pedicle nail system with PMMA for osteoporotic vertebral fractures. A clinical evaluation of this novel pedicle nail system utilized in patients with an osteoporotic vertebral collapse was performed to determine the effectiveness and safety of this technique. Thirty-four elderly patients who suffered from osteoporotic compression fractures were treated by posterolateral fusion using the pedicle nail system. The mean follow-up period was 37 months. Of the 25 patients with neurological symptoms, two patients improved two stages at the Frankel level. Fifteen patients improved one stage at the Frankel level, and eight other patients improved, however, their improvement did not exceed a Frankel level. Nine cases with neuralgia symptoms improved from 4.4 to 2.2 points on average on the Denis pain scale (p 


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