Christophe Vidal, Keyvan Mazda, Brice Ilharreborde


October 2016, Volume 25, Issue 10, pp 3162 - 3169 Original Article Read Full Article 10.1007/s00586-016-4681-3

First Online: 29 June 2016

Purpose

The human standing position requires permanent reciprocal spino-pelvic adjustments to obtain a dynamic and economic posture. This study focuses on a hypokyphotic Lenke 1 adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) patients cohort and points out their particular lumbo-pelvic adaptive mechanisms to maintain a neutral sagittal balance.

Methods

Preoperative retrospective analysis of prospectively collected data on a monocentric cohort of 455 AIS patients planned for corrective surgery. Radiological low-dose system coupled with a validated clinical routine software allowed to obtain data from eighty-four hypokyphotic [thoracic kyphosis (TK) <20°] Lenke 1 patients and were separately analyzed. Bilateral Student and one-way ANOVAs were conducted for statistical analysis.

Results

Mean Cobb angle was 46.3° (±7.2), TK was 11° (±7.1), sagittal vertical axis (SVA) was −10.1 mm (±30.9), pelvic incidence (PI) was 55.7° (±12.9). Fifty percents of patients were posteriorly imbalanced. Among them, patients with a low PI used an anteversion of their pelvis [indicated by a high pelvic tilt (PT) angle] but were not able to increase their lumbar lordosis (LL) to minimize the posterior spinal shift.

Conclusions

Hypokyphotic Lenke 1 AIS patients use lumbo-pelvic compensatory mechanisms to maintain their global balance with a poor effectiveness. Subjects with a low PI have a restricted range of LL adaptation. Attention should be paid during surgical planning not to overcorrect lordosis in the instrumented levels in case of non-selective fusion, that may induce posterior shift of the fusion mass and expose to junctional syndromes and poor functional outcomes in this particular patients.


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