Abstract
Pedicle screw fixation has become the norm for the surgical correction of adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS), with much biomechanical research into different types of rod screw constructs. The senior authors have experience using a monoaxial screw only construct in the correction of AIS since 2003 and the polyaxial screw only construct since 2005.
We retrospectively reviewed our experience in the first ten patients with AIS using the polyaxial system and compared this against 18 patients who had been corrected using the monoaxial system. Table I shows our results, expressed as mean and ranges or means ± SD for the main thoracic and lumbar curves.
Our early results show that the polyaxial system produces similar correction of both the thoracic and lumbar curves as compared to the monoaxial system in the immediate post-operative period. Though the absolute values for the lumbar curves differ between the two groups the percentage correction shows no statistical difference.
Correspondence should be addressed to: Dr Caroline Goldberg, The Research Centre, Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital Crumlin, Dublin 12, Ireland.
